English 25

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A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Strong arguments are void of logical fallacies, whilst arguments that are weak tend to use logical fallacies to appear stronger than they are. They’re like tricks or illusions of thought, and they’re often very sneakily used by politicians, the media, and others to fool people.
Don’t be fooled! This poster has been designed to help you identify some of the more common fallacies. If you see someone committing a logical fallacy online, link them to the relevant fallacy to school them in thinkiness e.g. yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

This poster is published under a Creative Commons No Derivative Works license 2012 by Jesse Richardson. You are free to print, copy, and redistribute this artwork, with the binding proviso that you reproduce it in full so that others may share alike. This poster can be downloaded for free at the website.

Misrepresenting someone’s argument to
make it easier to attack.
After Will said that we should put more money into
health and education, Warren responded by saying that
he was surprised that Will hates our country so much
that he wants to leave it defenceless by cutting
military spending.

Cherry-picking data clusters to suit an
argument, or finding a pattern to fit a
presumption.
The makers of Sugarette Candy Drinks point to
research showing that of the five countries where
Sugarette drinks sell the most units, three of them are in
the top ten healthiest countries on Earth, therefore
Sugarette drinks are healthy.

Attacking your opponent’s character
or personal traits in an attempt to
undermine their argument.
After Sally presents an eloquent and compelling case
for a more equitable taxation system, Sam asks the
audience whether we should believe anything from a
woman who isn’t married, was once arrested, and
smells a bit weird.

Asking a question that has an
assumption built into it so that it can’t be
answered without appearing guilty.
Grace and Helen were both romantically interested in
Brad. One day, with Brad sitting within earshot, Grace
asked in an inquisitive tone whether Helen was having
any problems with a fungal infection.

Believing that ‘runs’ occur to statistically
independent phenomena such as roulette
wheel spins.
Red had come up six times in a row on the roulette
wheel, so Greg knew that it was close to certain that
black would be next up. Su!ering an economic form of
natural selection with this thinking, he soon lost all of
his savings.

Appealing to popularity or the fact that
many people do something as an
attempted form of validation.
Shamus pointed a drunken finger at Sean and asked
him to explain how so many people could believe in
leprechauns if they’re only a silly old superstition.
Sean, however, had had a few too many Guinness
himself and fell o! his chair.

Where two alternative states are
presented as the only possibilities, when
in fact more possibilities exist.
Whilst rallying support for his plan to fundamentally
undermine citizens’ rights, the Supreme Leader told
the people they were either on his side, or on the side
of the enemy.

A circular argument in which the
conclusion is included in the premise.
The word of Zorbo the Great is flawless and perfect. We
know this because it says so in The Great and Infallible
Book of Zorbo’s Best and Most Truest Things that are
Definitely True and Should Not Ever Be Questioned.

Using the opinion or position of an
authority figure, or institution of
authority, in place of an actual argument.
Not able to defend his position that evolution ‘isn’t true’
Bob says that he knows a scientist who also questions
evolution (and presumably isn’t a primate).

Making the argument that because
something is ‘natural’ it is therefore valid,
justified, inevitable, good, or ideal.
The medicine man rolled into town on his bandwagon
o!ering various natural remedies, such as very special
plain water. He said that it was only natural that
people should be wary of ‘artificial’ medicines such
as antibiotics.

Assuming that what’s true about one part
of something has to be applied to all, or
other, parts of it.
Daniel was a precocious child and had a liking for logic.
He reasoned that atoms are invisible, and that he was
made of atoms and therefore invisible too.
Unfortunately, despite his thinky skills, he lost the game
of hide and go seek.

Using personal experience or an isolated
example instead of a valid argument,
especially to dismiss statistics.
Jason said that that was all cool and everything, but his
grandfather smoked, like, 30 cigarettes a day and lived
until 97 – so don’t believe everything you read about
meta analyses of sound studies showing proven
causal relationships.

Making what could be called an appeal to
purity as a way to dismiss relevant
criticisms or flaws of an argument.
Angus declares that Scotsmen do not put sugar on
their porridge, to which Lachlan points out that he is a
Scotsman and puts sugar on his porridge. Furious, like a
true Scot, Angus yells that no true Scotsman sugars his
porridge.

Saying that a compromise, or middle
point, between two extremes is the truth.
Holly said that vaccinations caused autism in children,
but her scientifically well-read friend Caleb said that this
claim had been debunked and proven false. Their friend
Alice o!ered a compromise that vaccinations cause
some autism.

Judging something good or bad on the
basis of where it comes from, or from
whom it comes.
Accused on the 6 o’clock news of corruption and taking
bribes, the senator said that we should all be very wary
of the things we hear in the media, because we all
know how very unreliable the media can be.

Using double meanings or ambiguities of
language to mislead or misrepresent the
truth.
When the judge asked the defendant why he hadn’t
paid his parking fines, he said that he shouldn’t have to
pay them because the sign said ‘Fine for parking here’
and so he naturally presumed that it would be fine to
park there.

Presuming that a real or perceived
relationship between things means that
one is the cause of the other.
Pointing to a fancy chart, Roger shows how
temperatures have been rising over the past few
centuries, whilst at the same time the numbers of
pirates have been decreasing; thus pirates cool the
world and global warming is a hoax.

Presuming that because a claim has been
poorly argued, or a fallacy has been made,
that it is necessarily wrong.
Recognising that Amanda had committed a fallacy in
arguing that we should eat healthy food because a
nutritionist said it was popular, Alyse said we should
therefore eat bacon double cheeseburgers every day.

Manipulating an emotional response in
place of a valid or compelling argument.
Luke didn’t want to eat his sheep’s brains with chopped
liver and brussels sprouts, but his father told him to
think about the poor, starving children in a third world
country who weren’t fortunate enough to have any
food at all.

Avoiding having to engage with criticism
by turning it back on the accuser –
answering criticism with criticism.
The blue candidate accused the red candidate of
committing the tu quoque fallacy. The red candidate
responded by accusing the blue candidate of the same,
after which ensued an hour of back and forth criticism
with not much progress.

Saying that the burden of proof lies not
with the person making the claim, but
with someone else to disprove.
Bertrand declares that a teapot is, at this very moment,
in orbit around the Sun between the Earth and Mars,
and that because no one can prove him wrong his
claim is therefore a valid one.

Saying that because one finds something
di!cult to understand that it’s therefore
not true.
Kirk drew a picture of a fish and a human and with
e!usive disdain asked Richard if he really thought we
were stupid enough to believe that a fish somehow
turned into a human through just, like, random things
happening over time.

Moving the goalposts to create exceptions
when a claim is shown to be false.
Edward Johns claimed to be psychic, but when his
‘abilities’ were tested under proper scientific conditions,
they magically disappeared. Edward explained this
saying that one had to have faith in his abilities for
them to work.

Asserting that if we allow A to happen,
then Z will consequently happen too,
therefore A should not happen.
Colin Closet asserts that if we allow same-sex couples
to marry, then the next thing we know we’ll be
allowing people to marry their parents, their cars and
even monkeys.

Running
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APA style HELPSHEET

Cinnamon Jenson

SLCC Phil 1120-009

Spring, 2013

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Plagiarism is the intentional or unintentional use of others’ ideas and words without

clearly acknowledging the source of that information. Citations are references to a published or

unpublished work. This document, written in APA format, is a guide for you, the student in

writing your academic articles (Research Summaries, Response papers or Argument Essays).

This guide will show you how to avoid plagiarism, how to cite, use quotes to support your

argument, and reference sources in a bibliography.

There are many forms of plagiarism. Most notably, you should never cut and copy and

paste from a website or another paper into your own paper. If you use a quote, always type it

into your word processor, marking it with quotation marks, and cite the source. Less notably,

though, you must cite the source even if you are summarizing or paraphrasing someone’s

argument. Here are some other forms of plagiarism:

• Quoting directly, paraphrasing or writing about someone’s ideas without giving a
reference.
• Using an author’s exact words without indicating they are quoted and referenced.
• Presenting your own version of other people’s ideas without acknowledgement.
• Putting ideas into your own words but only changing a few words
• Taking an image, diagram or artwork from another source without acknowledgement.
• Collaborating inappropriately with other students when individual work is required.
• Copying another student’s work or someone else’s work and submitting it as your own.

Plagiarism is an academic crime. Please be diligent in your professional development.

APA style (American Psychological Association) is a particular type of standard

formatting that is required by many behavioral sciences, humanities, and science journals. Other

common styles are MLS and Chicago Style. You may use either, as long as you are consistent

between citations and bibliography. All articles must be written double spaced, using Times

New Roman, 12 point font, with full justification.

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APA Style citations.

Citations indicate who said what. Use citations after you quote someone or summarize

their argument. If you use information from the Internet, you need to cite it IF: It is someone’s

original point or they have an original analogy or example; you are quoting them directly; or if

you are summarizing their argument or reasons for their position. You do not need to cite

common knowledge. If you are summarizing arguments, and you use sources such as Wikipedia

or Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, then cite the web page. Do not cite teachers or

powerpoints (unless it has been published), as this information is open-source for education

purposes.

Citations take the format: (Author’s last name, year of publication: page number of

quote or argument). For example: (Thomson, 1971:41).

Using Quotes.

Using quotes to support your argument is a skill. Note the word “using” quotes, which is

different than simply placing quotes in your paper as a filler. When you use a quote, you are

supporting your own argument with someone else’s idea. Do not overuse quotes, or let the

author do the talking for you. Never use stand-alone quotes, which are quotes that do not

introduce who the author is, or do not summarize what the quote says. Always introduce the

quote, and then summarize the quote in your own words. The reason is that everyone interprets

quotes different, or may focus on something different than you, or may draw opposite

inferences than you intend.

For a 5 page paper, you should use quotes sparingly (no more than one quote, and no

more than five sentences long). If the quote is less than three sentences long, indicate it with

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quotation marks. When you directly quote from an article, use block quotes by formatting the

quote in single space, no quotation marks, and a .5 inch indentation on both sides of the quote,

followed by the citation. Here is an example of a block quote, using Thomson:

One argument against abortion states that a fetus is a person from the moment of

conception because it may grow up to be an adult. Thomson points out that this argument

contains a slippery slope. The slippery slope assumes that if the first step (the adult) is a human,

then so is the next step (a child), and the next step (a baby), and the final step ( a fetus). In other

words, if an adult is a person, then so is a fetus. Thomson thinks the final step does not follow,

and she argues with an analogy:

Similar things might be said about the development of an acorn into an oak tree,
and it does not follow that acorns are oak trees. (Thomson, 1971: 47).

In other words, an acorn is not an oak tree, even if it might develop into one. Analogously, just

because an adult started out as a fetus, it does not make it a person. There are other necessary

properties that a fetus must possess in order to count it as a person, just as there are necessary

properties that an acorn must possess before it can be considered an oak tree.

Notice how the quote is introduced (we know it is Thomson who gave the analogy), and

then summarized. The author of the above passage uses Thomson to support his own argument

that a fetus is not a person. The author goes on to define what a “person” is, and gives 2-3 pages

explaining what the necessary properties of a person are. Thomson is only used to here to

introduce an analogy, and this analogy is original to Thomson.

When you summarize someone’s argument, you must also cite the author. Otherwise,

the reader might think that you are the author of the argument. Summaries are important to

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condense the author’s argument into a clear and concise way to both help the reader understand

the argument, and to focus on the exact part of the argument that you want to critique. Here is

an example of the use of a summary of Thomson’s argument:

One may argue that a fetus is a person from conception because the fetus may develop

into a child and then an adult. Because the child and adult are considered a person, then so too

must the fetus. Thomson points out that this is a slippery slope by making an analogy: An acorn

is not an oak tree simply because it may develop into one (Thomson, 1971: 47). In other words,

just because an oak tree (fetus) might develop into an oak tree (child or adult), we should not

call the acorn an oak tree.

Notice
 that
 there
 are
 no
 quotation
 marks,
 because
 it
 is
 a
 summary
 of
 Thomson’s
 argument,
 
in
 the
 author’s
 own
 words.
 
 

Bibliography.

A bibliography (or Reference) is an alphabetized list of information about published

work. The bibliography is located at the end of an article. There is a formal format for various

sources such as articles, books, web pages, films, etc. and you must use quotation marks,

periods, and italics in precisely the right format.

The most common source you will use for your Response Essay is quoting an author

directly from a book, quoting from an article that is in an anthology of articles, or quoting from

an article from an academic journal. The format for a book, anthology, and article respectively

is:

* * *
Book’s Author’s last name. First name. (Year of publication.) Book title. Publisher name:
Publisher place.

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Article’s Author’s last name, first name. (Year of publication of the anthology.) “Article title,”
in Anthology’s editor’s name first and last (eds), Anthology’s title. Publisher name: Publisher
place. Inclusive page numbers for the article.

Article’s Author’s last name, First name. (Year of publication.) “Article title,” in Academic
Journal title. Volume number (edition). Inclusive page numbers for the article.

For web pages, the format is:

Author, A., & Author, B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Online Periodical,
volume number(issue number if available). Retrieved month day, year from
http://www.someaddress.com/full/url/.

Podcasts:
Author. (Producer). (2007, month date). Title . Retrieved month day, year from
http:// www. Fullwebsite.com.

* * *
You can find information about a book on the publisher’s page (the first few pages) of the book.

If you download articles from Files in Canvas, then the information is usually found on the front

page of the copied article (it may be hand written). The copyright date on web pages is usually

found at the bottom of the website.

Here are some examples:

Bibliography:

Bernstein, M. (2002). “10 tips on writing the living Web.” A List Apart: For People Who Make
Websites. Retrieved Oct. 29, 2012, from http://www.alistapart.com/articles/writeliving.

O’Neil, J. M., & Egan, J. (1992). Men’s and women’s gender role journeys: A metaphor for
healing, transition, and transformation. In B. R. Wainrib (Ed.), Gender issues across the life
cycle (pp. 107-123). New York, NY: Springer.

Thomson, Judith Jarvis. (1971). “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs.
Volume 1 (1): 47-61.

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Wegener, D. T., & Petty, R. E. (1994). Mood management across affective states: The hedonic
contingency hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 1034-1048.

American Psychological Association. (Producer). (2000) Responding to therapeutic controls.
[DVD]. Available from http://www.apa.org/videos.

Useful APA Resources

See the APA website at www.apastyle.org

· APA style page: http://www.apastyle.org/
· You can check out the APA style blog: http://blog.apastyle.org/
· Check out the APA FAQ page too: http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/index.aspx
· The APA manual: American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the

American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Owl Perdue writing lab site at:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/06/ for more information.

· Visit the Purdue Owl website.
· http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
· Check out NoodleBib Express on NoodleTools.com
· http://www.noodletools.com/login.php
· Click on APA, select what type of citation you want to create, and enter the relevant

information.
· Check out CitationMachine for help with creating the proper citation and reference.
· http://citationmachine.net/index2.php