(Persuasive/Argumentative skills)

Every strong argument has the following general appeals:

1.Logical appeals: appeals using facts, statistics, authorities, anecdotes, scenarios, case studies, textual evidence, and reasonable statements.

2.Ethical appeals: appeals using commonly held values & beliefs; appeals to our sense of fairness, right and wrong, justice and mercy.

3.Emotional appeals: appeals to our heart, our passions, our feelings, our gut. Some appeals may combine all three characteristics in a single appeal.

Depending on the audience and situation, many of the following argument strategies may be either effective or ineffective; some strategies are almost always effective, while some are almost always ineffective. In other words, these strategies run the gamut of argument strategies and many may vary in their effectiveness depending on the argument and audience. The ineffective argument strategies are called logical fallacies.

Facts: a statement generally accepted as true, a reality that can be measured or verified by objective means.

Statistics: numerical data from authoritative sources.

Authorities: established experts with credentials on the subject.

Anecdotes: brief stories on a particular occurrence that provide concrete evidence in an argument.

Scenarios: a narrative that describes something that might happen.

Cases: an example from the writer's firsthand knowledge meant to be typical or generalized.

Textual evidence: integrating bits of text whenever you are evaluating or interpreting the text in order to build an argument.

Analogy: comparing two things and suggesting that what is true for one is also true for another.

Generalizing: drawing from a specific example and arguing it is true for an entire group.

Simplifying: leaving out less important details and minor contradictions for the sake of brevity.

Accepting the burden of proof: offering the necessary evidence to support the claim.

The following argument strategies are generally regarded as logical fallacies or less effective ways to support a claim.

Ad Hominem: Attacking the person who presents an issue rather than dealing logically with the issue itself

Faulty: His arguments might impress us if we were not aware of how he

treats his children

[The man's alleged unfatherly behavior need not invalidate his

arguments.]

Flattery: representing opponents in a favorable way to "soften them up."

Circular reasoning: (also called "begging the question") arguing that a claim is true by repeating the claim in different words.

Faulty: He is lazy because he just doesn't like to work.

[Being lazy and not liking to work mean essentially the same thing.]

Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc: "After this, so because of this" - the mistake of assuming that becauseone event follows another, the first must be the cause of the second. Confusing chronology with causality.

Faulty: The new mayor took office last January and crime in the streets

has already increased 25 percent.

[The assumption is that having the new mayor caused the increase in

crime, an assumption unlikely to be true.]

Over use of authority: assuming that something is true simply because an expert says so and ignoring evidence to the contrary.

False use of authorities: invoking an expert whose expertise lies in another field.

Either/or reasoning: assuming that there are only two sides to a question, and representing yours as the correct one.

Faulty: We have only two choices: ban nuclear weapons, or destroy the

earth.

[In fact, other possibilities exist.]

Equivocating: misleading or hedging with ambiguous word choices, using the same term with two different senses in the same argument.

Faulty: You have a right to vote, so do what is right and vote.

[The word right means both "a just claim" and "correct."]

Failing to accept the burden of proof: asserting a claim without presenting a reasoned argument to support it.

Personal attack: (also called, "ad hominen," Latin for "against the man") demeaning the proponents of a claim instead of their argument.

Red herring: attempting to misdirect the discussion by raising an essentially unrelated point.

Faulty: Why worry about acid rain when we ought to be doing

something about terrorism?

[Acid raid has nothing to do with the actions of terrorists.]

Slanting or card stacking: selecting or emphasizing the evidence that supports your claim and suppressing or playing down other evidence.

Slippery slope: (sometimes called a "tenuous chain of causation") arguing that one thing inevitably leads to another.

Straw man: directing arguments against a claim that nobody actually holds or that everyone agrees is very weak.

Bandwagon: when it is suggested that great numbers of people agree and if you continue to disagree, you would be alone.

An argument saying, in effect, "Everyone's doing or saying or thinking

this, so you should, too."

Faulty: Everyone else is drinking, so why shouldn't I?

[The majority is not always right.]

Non sequitur: (Latin for "it does not follow") when one statement is not logically connected to another.

Faulty: Susan is smart; therefore she will receive good grades.

[Many smart people do not receive good grades.]

Double standard: when two or more comparable things are judged according to different standards; often involves holding the opposing argument to a higher standard than the one to which the writer holds his or her own argument.

False flattery: when readers are unduly praised in order to win them over.

Veiled threat: when the writer tries to alarm readers or frighten them into accepting the claim.

Guilt by association: when someone's credibility is attacked by associating that person with another person whom readers consider untrustworthy.

False analogy: when two cases are not sufficiently parallel to lead readers to accept the claim; assuming that because one thing resembles another, conclusions drawn from one also apply to the other.

Faulty: since the books are about the same length and cover the same

material, one is probably as good as the other.

[The length and coverage of the books cannot predict whether one is as

good as the other.]

Hasty generalization: offering only weak or limited evidence to support a conclusion; asserting a claim on the basis of an isolated example.

Faulty: Republicans have lots of money.

[Many Republicans don't have much money.]

Sweeping generalization: failing to qualify the applicability of the claim and asserting that it applies to "all" instances instead of to "some" instances. Overgeneralization: failing to qualify the claim and asserting that it is "certainly true" rather than it "may be true."

Oversimplifying: giving easy answers to complicated questions, often by appealing to emotions rather that logic; obscuring or denying the complexity of the issue.

Loaded or slanted emotional appeal: using language that is calculated to get a particular reaction from readers.

Sob story: manipulating readers' emotions in order to lead them to draw unjustified conclusions