common logical fallacies

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Scare Tactics

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

Either-Or Choices

Reduces complicated issues to only two possible courses of action.

Slippery Slope

Describing an argument that casts a tiny misstep today as tomorrow's avalanche. Predicting without justification that one step in a process will lead inevitably to a second, generally undesirable step.

Sentimental Appeals

Attempts to appeal to the hearts of readers so that they forget to use their minds.

Bandwagon Appeal

Encourages the listener to agree with a position because everyone else does.

Appeals to False Authority

Using a person, group, or institution to back up an argument even though they have no expertise in the area.

Dogmatism

In an argument, acting like one option is the only course of action that a sane, ethically correct person would take.

Moral Equivalence

Compares minor problems with much more serious crimes (or vice versa).

Ad Hominem

Arguments that attack individuals rather than ideas.

Hasty Generalization

Drawing conclusions based on insufficient or unrepresentative evidence.

Faulty Causality

The faulty assumption that because one event follows another, the first necessarily causes the second. Just because one event follows another, does not necessarily mean that the first event caused the second.

Begging the Question

The argument's reasoning goes in a circle, where the speaker or writer relies on the truth of the conclusion as part of their reasoning, without providing independent evidence to support it.

Non-Sequitur

A statement that does not follow logically from evidence. Literally translates to 'It does not follow.'

Straw Man Fallacy

Misrepresenting someone's position or argument to make it look weaker and then attacking the weaker version.

Faulty Analogy

It is argued that one situation is similar to another situation in at least one respect; therefore, it must be similar in another or all respects.

Glittering Generalities

The use of emotionally appealing words that are meant to inspire action. This is similar to pathos, but is being used at the word level with the intent to deceive.