AP English Lang Argument Terms

Persuasion: an appeal in order to convey some action

Argumentation: forming reasons, drawing conclusions, and applying them to a case on a debate

Purposes of Argumentation:

1. Support a cause

2. Promote a change

3. Refute a theory

4. Arouse sympathy

5. Increase interest

6. Win an argument

7. Urge action

Audience Types:

1. No opinion and do not care

2. No opinion but interested to learn more

3. People who have opinions and hold them tightly

4. People who have opinions but are open to other points of view

Claim - something asserted or maintained, the main point of an argument

Subclaim - the subordinate point to a larger claim or position in your argument

Support/Evidence - support of evidence used to help strengthen your argument

Concession - conceding, acknowledging, or admitting in opponent’s point

Refutation- to discredit an argument, particularly a counter argument

Evidence Types:

Fact - an actual occurrence

Example/Anecdote - an individual instance taken to be representational of a general pattern, usually a short narrative of a relevant episode

Statistic - a collection of quantitative data

Opinion - a judgement, view, or appraisal formed in the mind

Analogy/Comparison - a connection to a directly parallel case

Shared belief/values - when a writer argues that if something is widely believed or valued, then the reader should also accept it

Causal Relationship - a writer asserts that one thing results from another

Call to Action - words that urge the reader or listener to take action

Argumentative Appeals:

Pathos - appeal based on emotions

Logos - appeal based on logic or reasoning

Ethos - appeal based on character or speaker

Argumentative Structures:

Classical - syllogism, major proposition, minor proposition, followed by conclusion

Rogerian Argument - to solve a problem by compromise

Deductive Reasoning - Reasoning on the form of if A, then B

Inductive Reasoning - Reasoning which states specific then gets general (If B, then A)

Logical Fallacies:

Ad Hominem - attacks the personality of the individual

Ad Populum - a proposition held to be true because it is widely true by some sector of the population

Ad Vericundium - belief that something said by a great person is true, even if times have changed or proven to be wrong

Nonsequitur - when one statement isn’t logically connected to another

False Analogy - when two cases aren’t sufficiently parallel

Circular Reasoning - which attempts to prove something by showing that because a 2nd event followed a 1st event, the 2nd event is a result of the 1st event

Overgeneralization - uses too few examples needed to reach a valid conclusion

Stereotyping - an oversimplified conception that one is regarded as embodying a set type

Begging the Question - assumes something needs to be true that needs proof

False Authority - when the person in question is not legitimate authority on the subject

Slippery Slope - some event must inevitably follows from another without any argument of the inevitability of the event in question

Equivocation - use of expressions susceptible to double meaning

Oversimplification- when a writer obscures or distorts the complexity of the issues

Double Standard - a set of principles permitting greater opportunity or liberty to one than to another

Either or reasoning - does not allow for any shades of meaning, compromise, or intermediate cases

Smokescreen (Strawman) - method of argument in which an opponent creates a weakened, incomplete, and often distorted version of an argument, then destroys it