APLAC fallasies quiz

Scare tactics

When a significant figure frightens people and exaggerates possible dangers well beyond their statistical likelihood to express thier views.

Either/Or Choices

Used to reduce a complicated issue to simplistic terms and act as if there are only two opposite choices.

Slippery Slope

Used to portray one decision today as a slippery slope to a failure of a future. Usually includes exaggerating consequences.

Overly Sentimental Appeals

Uses highly emotional appeals and individual focus to appeal tender emotion and distract readers from facts.

Bandwagon appeals

Urge people to follow the same path everyone else is taking

Appeals to False Authority

Occurs when writers offer themselves or other authorities as sufficient warrant for believing a claim.

Dogmatism

When a writer asserts or assumes that a particular position is the only one that is conceivably acceptable.

Ad Hominem Arguments

Arguments that attack the character or person instead of the claims they make.

Stacking the Deck

Seen when writers only show and express one side of the story - their side

Hasty generalization

An inference drawn from insufficient evidence

Faulty Causality

The faulty assumption that just because one event or action follows another, the first causes the second.

Begging the Question

Assuming as true the very claim that is being disputed

Equivocation

Half true arguments that give lies an honest appearance

Non Sequitur

An arguments whose claims, reasons, or warrants don’t connect logically

Straw Man

Arguing against other arguments that no one is really making or portraying opponents’ positions as more extreme or far less coherent than they actually are.

Red Herring

An argument that changes the subject abruptly or introduces an irrelevant claim or fact to throw readers off the trail

Faulty Analogy

Inaccurate or inconsequential comparisons between objects or concepts

Paralipsis

Occurs when a speaker or author state they will not talk about something, thus doing the exact thing they say they’re not going to do