Understanding fallacies
Arguments exist in ongoing discussions. If someone makes a claim and provides in support of it, others may choose to accept the claim or reject it. Others are free to analyze and identify such a request for weakness. Fallacies are weaknesses in urgings (Miller & Miller, 2019). Knowing more about errors enables one to be alert during discussions. One might realize the flaw in his argument or other’s statements during debates.
Common Fallacies
Missing the point, this is a fallacy that occurs when the evidence gathered does not support the claim as expected. For example, “hunting should not be seen as cruel because it gives incredible pleasure to a lot of people,” the speaker’s support towards the claim focused on the pleasure of hunting. Someone in the prerogative that hunting is not spiteful ought to have supported it with a statement like methods of hunting are fast and painless. So the report should be as follows” hunting should not be considered as cruel because the means of hunting are quick and painless.”
Hasty generalization, this type of fallacy occurs when the speaker gives a wide range of assumptions with few facts. For instance, ‘all writers must start the paper by demarcation because I like doing that, and I score high grades in all my projects.’ There are several formats that are used to write papers, and this statement ignores all of them. The report is limited to one person’s opinion on success. The speaker could have avoided generalizing by dropping the word ‘’ALL”. To avoid this fallacy, the speaker should be careful while choosing the sources. If the sources are too broad, choose from the best source.
Straw man, this fallacy is seen when one fails to attack the issue at hand but chooses to misrepresent or exaggerate the problem. For instance, ‘parents want tuition fees to be reduced so that students can save money for entertainment.’ Parents who want tuition fees to be reduced are misrepresented by the speaker. The reason for lowering tuition fees seemed to be far-fetched as there are more substantial reasons for people wishing tuition fees to be reduced. The statement would be more logical if it states, “people want tuition kept low to minimize student’s debts.”