Fallacies

Question 1

Emotional Appeals (like a sob story)

Answer 1

Use emotion to distract audience from facts and to manipulate audience into drawing unjustified conclusions

Question 2

Oversimplification

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Red herrings

Answer 3

Use misleading or unrelated evidence to support a conclusion. Intentional deflection

Question 4

Scare tactics

Answer 4

Try to frighten people into agreeing with the arguer by threatening them or predicting unrealistically dire consequenses

Question 5

Bandwagon appeals (Ad populum)

Answer 5

Encourage audience to agree with the writer because everyone else is doing so

Question 6

Slippery Slope

Answer 6

Arguments suggest that one thing will lead to another. Usually to a catastrophe

Question 7

Either / or choices

Answer 7

Reduce complicated issues to only two possible courses of action

Question 8

False Need

Answer 8

Arguments create an unnecessary desire for things

Question 9

False Authority

Answer 9

Asks audiences to agree with the assertion of a writer based simply on his or her character or the authority of another person or institution who may not be fully qualified to offer that assertion

Question 10

Failing to Accept the Burden of Proof

Answer 10

Assertion of a claim without presenting a reasoned argument to support it

Question 11

Using Authority instead of Evidence (over reliance on authority)

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

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 (or vice versa)

Question 15

Ad Hominem

Answer 15

Arguments attack a person’s character rather than that person’s reasoning

Question 16

Strawman

Answer 16

Arguments 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. From one to whole.

Question 18

Faulty Causality (Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc)

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Non Sequitur

Answer 19

Statement that does not logically relate to what comes before it. Important logical step is missing. Not Intentional necessarily

Question 20

Equivocation

Answer 20

Half-true statement that is partially correct but that purposefully obscures the entire truth, or a word with multiple meanings that the writer manipulates and changes through the course of an argument

Question 21

Begging the Question (or circular reasoning)

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Faulty Analogy

Answer 22

An inaccurate, inappropriate, or misleading comparison between two things

Question 23

Stacked Evidence (slanting)

Answer 23

Represents only one side of the issue, thus distorting it