Rhetorical Fallacies

Front 1

Sentimental Appeals

Back 1

use emotion to distract the audience from the facts

Front 2

Red Herrings

Back 2

Use misleading or unrelated evidence to support a conclusion

Front 3

Scare Tactics

Back 3

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

Front 4

Bandwagon Appeals

Back 4

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

Front 5

Slippery Slope arguments

Back 5

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

Front 6

Either/Or Choices

Back 6

Reduce complicated issues to only two possible courses of action

Front 7

False Need

Back 7

Arguments create an unnecessary desire for things

Front 8

False Authority

Back 8

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

Front 9

Using Authority Instead of Evidence

Back 9

occurs when people use personal authority as proof

Front 10

Guilt by Association

Back 10

calls someone's character into question by examining the character of that person's associates

Front 11

Dogmatism

Back 11

shuts down argument by stating that the writer's beliefs are the only acceptable ones

Front 12

Moral Equivalence

Back 12

compares minor problems with much more serious crimes

Front 13

Ad Hominem

Back 13

attacks a persons character rather than their reasoning

Front 14

Strawman

Back 14

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

Front 15

Faulty Causality or Post Hoc)

Back 15

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

Front 16

Non Sequitur

Back 16

is a statement that does not logically relate to what comes before it. An important logical step may be missing in such a claim.

Front 17

Equivocation

Back 17

ahalf-‐‐truth, or a statement that is partially correct but that purposefully obscures the entire truth

Front 18

Begging the Question

Back 18

occurs when a writer simply restates the claim in a different way; such an argument is circular

Front 19

Faulty Analogy

Back 19

is an inaccurate, inappropriate, or misleading comparison between two things

Front 20

Stacked Evidence

Back 20

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