Logical Fallacies, Rhetorical Devices, and Grammar Basics

Vocabulary flashcards defining logical fallacies, rhetorical devices, parts of speech, and citation guidelines based on lecture notes.

Logical Fallacy

An error in reasoning that makes an argument false or deceptive.

Ad Hominem

A fallacy that occurs when someone attacks the person making the argument instead of addressing the person's actual argument or position.

Strawman

A fallacy that occurs when someone distorts or exaggerates another person's argument, and then attacks the distorted version of the argument instead of debunking the original point.

Red Herring

A fallacy that occurs when someone redirects a conversation away from its original topic by introducing an irrelevant piece of information.

Bandwagon Appeal

A fallacy that occurs when someone claims that something is true or good because everyone believes it is true or good.

Appeal to Ignorance

A fallacy that occurs when someone argues that a conclusion is true because there is no evidence against it.

Slippery Slope

A fallacy that occurs when someone claims that a position or decision will lead to a series of unintended, and usually increasingly outlandish, negative consequences.

Circular Reasoning

A fallacy that occurs when the end of an argument comes back to the beginning without having proven itself.

Faulty Causality

A fallacy that occurs when someone assumes that one thing caused another to happen based solely on the fact that one came before the other.

Either/Or Choices

A fallacy that occurs when someone claims there are only two possible options or sides in an argument when there are actually more.

Stacking the Deck

A fallacy that occurs when someone ignores or omits evidence (either purposefully or by mistake) that does not support their position.

Hasty Generalization

A fallacy that occurs when someone makes a broad conclusion based on a small or unrepresentative sample.

Misleading Vividness

A fallacy that occurs when someone uses a small number of dramatic events to claim that something is more or less prevalent or important than it actually is.

Rhetoric

The art or skill of speaking or writing formally and effectively.

Rhetorical Devices

Techniques, or 'linguistic tools,' that employ a particular type of sentence structure, sound, or pattern of meaning in order to evoke a particular reaction from an audience.

Allusion

An indirect reference to a well-known person, event, place, story, work of art, piece of music, etc.

Eponym

A type of metaphor that refers to a famous person to link his or her attributes with someone else.

Hyperbole

Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

Understatement

The presentation of something in which the force of a descriptive statement is less than what one would normally expect.

Parallelism

The repetition of a chosen grammatical form (pattern of words) within a sentence.

Antithesis

The use of contrasting concepts, words, or sentences within parallel grammatical structures.

Chiasmus

A form of parallelism in which grammatical constructions are repeated in reverse order.

Anaphora

A device in which the writer repeats a word or phrase at the beginning of multiple clauses or phrases.

Epistrophe

A device in which the writer repeats a word or phrase at the end of multiple clauses.

Symploce

A rhetorical device combining anaphora and epistrophe.

Asyndeton

A device involving leaving out conjunctions in a list or between clauses.

Polysyndeton

A device involving inserting conjunctions between every item of a list.

Hyperbaton

A device in which you arrange the words in the sentence in an unexpected order.

Analogy

A comparison between two things, typically on the basis of their structure and for the purpose of explanation or clarification.

Amplification

A device in which writers repeat something they’ve said, while adding more detail and information to the original description.

Pleonasm

The use of more words than are necessary to convey meaning.

Litotes

Ironical understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary.

Apophasis

A rhetorical device wherein the speaker or writer brings up a subject by either denying it, or denying that it should be brought up.

Hypophora

The technique of asking a question, then proceeding to answer it.

Concrete Nouns

Nouns that refer to a person, place, or thing.

Abstract Nouns

Nouns that refer to ideas.

Pronoun

A word that takes the place of a noun.

Relative Pronouns

Pronouns that introduce dependent clauses which give more information, such as who, whom, which, whoever, whomever, whichever, and that.

Indefinite Pronouns

Pronouns used for nonspecific items or people, such as anyone, someone, all, both, few, each, and nobody.

Sentence

A group of words, containing a subject (noun or pronoun) and a predicate (verb), that expresses a statement, question, command, or wish.

Interjections

Exclamatory words that show strong emotion and should never be used in academic writing.

Block Quote

A formatted quotation used for quotes longer than four lines, introduced with a colon, indented 1/2 inch from the left margin on a new line, with the in-text citation placed after the period.