Informal Fallacies Of An Informal Fallacy

A fallacy, by definition, is an argument that uses poor reasoning. Before one uses a fallacy, it’s important to have full understanding or else you risk losing your whole ethos aspect of your argument. Heinrichs gives three important parts to detecting fallacies. “All you have to do is look for a bad proof, the wrong number of choices, or a disconnect between the proof and the conclusion.” (Heinrichs 146)

Every day, companies present the people with advertisements everywhere they go. Advertisements have become very prevalent in today’s society nowadays focusing in on a negative connotation. Advertisement has become an effective way for producers to display their new products. In present day, they come in forms of billboards, flyers, e-mails, and even text messages. It is widely known that companies create advertisements to persuade people to buy specific products or goods; however, it is not widely known that advertisements can make a negative impact on today’s society. The companies manipulate people’s mind and emotions, swaying people by new promotions and therefore generating a strong desire to fit into the society, that causes them to make inessential expenditures. Advertisements pose a critical impact on the American culture.

Every minute of every day, millions of people are exposed to advertisements. They plague televisions, streets, radio waves, and all means of communication. These advertisements employ many methods of persuasion and their influence is irresistible. Just like prisoners in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, we are told every day to invest our time and interest into the subject of these advertisements, and to accept the forms of reality they serve us. Whether it be a commercial for a must-have new car, to a spot featuring desirable fast food, or to magazines with photoshopped models; we are seduced to accept these false

Advertisements are everywhere. From billboards, to magazines, to newspapers, flyers and TV commercials, chances are that you won’t go a day without observing some sort of ad. In most cases, companies use these ads as persuasive tools, deploying rhetorical appeals—logos, pathos, and ethos—to move their audiences to think or act in a certain way. The two magazine ads featured here, both endorsing Pedigree products, serve as excellent examples of how these modes of persuasion are strategically used.

Commercials, such as the 2012 Chevy Silverado Super Bowl commercial, have become part of people’s everyday life, constantly shocking, exciting, and engaging people with the meaning behind them. People see commercials every time they turn on the TV and file the information away for later situations, such as information about a cell phone data plan or a new vehicle just announced available. Each commercial watched promotes some sort of cause, object, or idea that companies want to sell to the common person. Commercials use symbolism, imagination, ethics, logic, and emotion to sell these things using their promoting techniques, one strong example of these things in action being the 2012 Chevy Silverado Super Bowl commercial.

Logical Fallacies can be found in many forms of persuasions, in infomercials, political debates, common discussion, everywhere. Although Logical Fallacies are very common, they mar our arguments and should be avoided. In order to avoid them we must first learn to recognize them. To fully understand Logical Fallacies, we will look at the definition of Logical Fallacies, some examples of Logical Fallacies, classifications of Logical Fallacies, and finally why we should, and how we can, avoid them.

“The Language of Advertising” written by Charles A. O’Neill is an excerpt arguing as well as supporting popular criticisms against the advertising language by William Lutz, and other known criticisms of advertising. The concept of advertising is not something that has only been popular over the recent decades, but has been used as far back as the World Wars. The use of propaganda attracted thousands of eyes to the War, and without knowing it, created what we call today as typical advertising. After WWII many people with good reason, were concerned over the topic of scientific success, due to the recent usage of the Nuclear Bomb by the United States. Many giant American corporations started creating new materials, fabrics, vaccines and machines (the most important being plastic), thus creating a new wave of marketing. Now this process never stopped and has not stopped all throughout the past decades, our own, and the ones to come. But as newer, bigger and better products or services are created nobody really understands the power of how they marketed or advertised. Well “how does advertising work? Why is it so powerful? Why does it raise such concern? What case can be made for and against the advertising business?” (O’Neill 369). For you to understand the concept of advertising, Charles O’Neill makes it clear that you must first understand that it’s not about truth, virtue, or positive social values, but money. The most popular “tool” that advertisement creators use is that

Another way television misleads its viewers is by the way that they present candidates for an election of politicians. They spend all their time and money trying to put together a commercial that only puts down the other candidate. How are voters supposed to know whom to vote for if all they are presented with is negative ideas about each candidate? Television also tries to persuade us to vote for a certain proposition. Voters are also lured into voting for or against a proposition by listening to the music being played in the background of the commercial. An example of this type of situation may be the campaign on proposition 5 dealing with the Indian Casinos. They play sad, and convincing, music in the background of their commercial so the viewers can soften their hearts and vote “yes” on their proposition. Television is powerful enough to make our shopping easier. Actually, it is making us lazier. TV stations such as the Home Shopping Network make shopping as easy as dialing some numbers on a touch tone phone. People are also convinced to buy a certain product because a celebrity is presenting it. For example: if supermodel Cindy Crawford presents make-up, ladies will buy it and wear it because they believe that it will make them look like her.

Society uses manipulation to divert people’s attention every day and oftentimes people do not realize that they are being manipulated. An advertisement through television is one of the many ways that people are manipulated. TV uses advertisements daily by incorporating subliminal messages to get people to do things that they would not otherwise be thinking about doing. The following articles “Can TV improve us?” by Jane Rosenzweig, On Sale at Old Navy: Cool Clothes for Identical Zombies!” by Damien Cave and TV’s War of Words” by Deborah Tannen exemplify instances where manipulation is being showcased at its best.

It is very common among the United States’ political sphere to rely heavily on T.V. commercials during election season; this is after all the most effective way to spread a message to millions of voters in order to gain their support. The presidential election of 2008 was not the exception; candidates and interest groups spent 2.6 billion dollars on advertising that year from which 2 billion were used exclusively for broadcast television (Seelye 2008.) Although the effectiveness of these advertisements is relatively small compared to the money spent on them (Liasson 2012), it is important for American voters to think critically about the information and arguments presented by these ads. An analysis of the rhetoric in four of the political

Fallacies can be either illegitimate arguments or irrelevant points, and are often identified because they lack evidence that supports their claims. However, based on the argument presented no fallacies were detected as the arguments had evidence to support its claim. The argument presented was introduced using a claim of value. According to Rottenberg and Winchell (2012) claims of value attempt to prove that some things are more or less desirable than others. They express approval or disapproval of standards of taste and morality. Advertisements and reviews of cultural events are one common source of value claims, but such claims emerge whenever people argue about what is good or bad, beautiful or

In both chapters “Inventing” and “Common Informal Fallacies” from The Writing Arc the authors direct themselves college freshmen, who often tend to lack the expertise required to effectively write. The writers of the chapter “Inventing” write with the purpose of aiding the reader with the process of beginning their writing. On the other hand, “Common Informal Fallacies” helps the reader identify, explain, solve, and prevent some common mistakes that are made when writing. Their tone is formal, supportive, and educational. The two chapters demonstrate the author’s knowledge and experience in writing. This gives them the image of having credibility and authority.

A fallacy is committed when the person is not qualified or is not recognised to be a legitimate authority on the specific subject of the argument. For instance, in commercial advertisements, celebrities who promote products for their qualities and effectiveness are not qualified in the field of the specific product (eg. beauty products, dietary medication, cars). The facts could be true, but as the claim is supported on the basis that an unqualified authority or a non-expert body said so, it makes the argument difficult to believe. However the Appeal to Authority fallacy is quite common as people have a tendency to believe in authority and experts, which can make a claim

This is the most common and that is because it is the appeal to emotion and everybody wants to be some form of successful in life. This strategy can be used in many ways and includes the use of fallacies in order to make a point. The directors use multiple fallacies. The least common fallacy that the directors use is false cause. The documentary uses this one at the point when it explains how to use the Law of Attraction.

To distinguish the pros and cons of cognitive biases, the biases should be dealt in a case by case scenario. However, there are groups that benefit from using the main cognitive biases, and those are the media, business marketing, and politicians. These groups play to the erroneous intuition that people usually depend on to make their