AP Lang: Logical Fallacies

poisoning the well/ad hominem

a vicious personal attack

tu quoque

responding to criticism with criticism

bandwagon appeal

“everyone likes it, so you should too”

slippery slope

“If you let Kyle stay out late, he’ll start drinking and using drugs, and before you know it, he’ll be homeless or in jail.”

anecdotal

using personal experience or an isolated incident to make an argument

hasty generalization

a few examples (not enough) are used to make a generalization

sweeping generalization

an argument based on an unqualified generalization - “all teenagers are addicted to electronics”

red herring

a distraction; an argument used to sidetrack everyone involved

either/or (black or white)

two alternative states are presented as the only possibility when, in fact, there are more

appeal to false authority

for example, using a celebrity to sell car insurance

faulty causality

a bad relationship of cause and effect

• ex: a person who is honest will not steal, so my client, an honest person, clearly is not guilt of theft

scare tactic

“you better buy this health insurance now are you may not qualify when you are older, and you don’t want to become a burden to your family.”

straw man

misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to attack/twisting someone’s argument

• Sara: the government should spend more money on healthcare and education instead of expanding military spending.

• Megan: Sara hates this country so much that she thinks we should cut military funding.