Rhetorical Fallacies

Question 1

either or

Answer 1

choices reduce complicated issues to only two possible courses of action

Question 2

scare tactics

Answer 2

try to frighten people into agreeing with the arguer by threatening them or predicting unrealistically dire consequences

Question 3

slippery slope

Answer 3

arguments suggest that one thing will lead to another, oftentimes with disastrous results

Question 4

ad populum (bandwagon)

Answer 4

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

Question 5

appeal to authority (or false authority)

Answer 5

asks audience to agree with a writer based simply on his or her character or authority even if that person may not be fully qualified to offer that assertion.

Question 6

ad hominem

Answer 6

arguments attack a persons character rather than that persons reasoning (ad hominem is latin for “against the man” or “agains the person”)

Question 7

Hasty generalization

Answer 7

draws conclusion from limited evidence

Question 8

Post Hoc (faulty causality)

Answer 8

arguments confuse time order with causation: one event can occur after another without being caused by it. (latin for “after this” or “after this event”)

Question 9

Red Herring

Answer 9

argument introduces an irrelevant topic to divert the attention of readers from the original issue

Question 10

Straw man

Answer 10

sets up and often dismantles easily refutable arguments in order to misrepresent an opponent’s argument in order to defeat him or her.