Rhetorical Fallacies

Red Herrings

use misleading or unrelated evidence to support a conclusion

Sentimental Appeal

use emotion to distract the audience from the facts

Scare Tactics

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

Bandwagon Appeal

encourages an audience to agree with the writer because everyone else does

Slippery Slope

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

Either/Or Choices

reduce complicated issues to only two possible courses of action

False Need

create an unnecessary desire for things

False Authority

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

Moral Equivalence

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

Ad Hominem

attack a person's character rather than that person's reasoning

Strawman

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

Hasty Generalization

draws conclusions from scanty evidence

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

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

Non Sequitur

a statement that does not logically relate to what comes before it

Equivocation

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

Begging the Question

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

Faulty Analogy

an inaccurate, inappropriate, or misleading comparison between two things