Fallacies

Question 1

Emotional Fallacy/Sob Story

Answer 1

uses emotion to distract audience from the facts and manipulate audience to draw unjust conlcusions

Question 2

Oversimplification

Answer 2

provides easy answers to complicated questions, often by appealing to emotions rather than logic

Question 3

Red Herring

Answer 3

uses misleading/unrelated evidence to support a conclusion (often deliberate, tries to deflect attention)

Question 4

Scare Tactics

Answer 4

tries to frighten people into agreeing with the arguer by threatening them or predicting unrealistically dire consequences (not the same as a threat)

Question 5

Bandwagon Appeal (Ad Populum)

Answer 5

encourage an audience to agree because everyone else is doing so (group appeal)

Question 6

Slippery Slope

Answer 6

suggest that one thing will lead to another, oftentimes with disastrous results (always negative - ends badly)

Question 7

Either/Or Choices (False Dilemma)

Answer 7

reduce complicated issues to only two possible choices of action

Question 8

False Need

Answer 8

create an unnecessary desire for things (personal rather than group appeal)

Question 9

False Authority

Answer 9

asks audiences to agree with the assertion of a writer based simply on the authority of another person/institution who may not be fully qualified to offer that assertion

Question 10

Failing to Accept the Burden of Proof

Answer 10

the assertion of a claim without presenting a reasoned argument to support it

Question 11

Using Authority Instead of Evidence

Answer 11

occurs when someone offers personal authority as proof

Question 12

Guilt by Association

Answer 12

calls someone’s character into question by examining the character of that person’s associates (always negative)

Question 13

Dogmatism

Answer 13

shuts down discussion by asserting that the writer’s beliefs are the only acceptable ones

Question 14

Moral Equivalence

Answer 14

compares minor problems with much more serious crimes (very undermining to reader)

Question 15

Ad Hominem

Answer 15

attacks a person’s character rather than that person’s reasoning (to the individual)

Question 16

Strawman

Answer 16

set up and often dismantle easily refutable arguments in order to misrepresent an opponent’s argument in order to defeat him or her

Question 17

Hasty Generalization

Answer 17

draws general and premature conclusions from scanty evidence (1 event in past –> massive conclusions about whole)

Question 18

Faulty Casualty (Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc)

Answer 18

confuse chronology with causation: one event can occur after another without being caused by it

Question 19

Non Sequitur (it doesn’t follow)

Answer 19

a statement that doesn’t logically relate to what becomes before it (an important logical step may be missing in such a claim) (often unintentional)

Question 20

Equivocation

Answer 20

a half-truth, a statement that is partially correct but that purposely obscures the entire truth, or a word with multiple meanings that the writer changes throughout the argument

Question 21

Begging the Question (Circular Reasoning)

Answer 21

occurs when a writer simply restates the claim in a different way; such an argument is circular; trying to prove one idea with another idea that is too similar to the first idea

Question 22

Faulty Analogy

Answer 22

inaccurate, inappropriate, or misleading comparison between two things

Question 23

Stacked Evidence (Slanting)

Answer 23

represents only one side of the issue, thus distorting the issue