Defending a Stand on an Issue

Defending a Stand on an Issue by Presenting Reasonable Arguments

• Appealing to your audience means convincing them that your views are valid. To do this, consider their perspective and attack their thinking with this in mind.
• Three major types of appeals:
  • Logical Appeals: This appeals to your audience's intellect and reason, often citing statistics or facts.
  • Emotional Appeals: This appeals to your audience's emotions and feelings, like using stories or imagery.
  • Ethical Appeals: This appeals to your audience's sense of ethics and morality, often using credibility of the source as the main tool.
• Organizing Arguments:
  • Your argument should be clear in your thesis statement.
  • You need several reasons or points that support your argument.
  • Explain and support these reasons with evidence.
  • Cite any information from sources properly.
• Presenting Arguments:
  • Be confident, passionate, and respectful when presenting your arguments.
  • The goal is to persuade your audience to agree with you.
• Stand: A viewpoint or perspective on a topic.
• Claim: Statements that support the author's stand, often called arguments.
• Counterclaims: Arguments that oppose a stand.
• Evidences: Proofs or facts to strengthen the author's claims.
• Fallacies: Mistaken beliefs, particularly on unsound arguments.
• Appeal to Ignorance Fallacy: Claiming something is true because there's no proof that it's false. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
• Slippery Slope Fallacy: Claiming one small action will lead to a chain of events ending in a bad outcome. Always look for words like "if...then" or "leads to..."
• Complex Question Fallacy: A loaded question that presumes the answer is true.
• Hasty Generalization Fallacy: Drawing a big conclusion from a small amount of information.
• Appeal to Consequences Fallacy: Convincing someone that something is true or false based on its positive or negative consequences.
• Bandwagon Fallacy: Convincing someone to do something because everyone else is doing it.
• Attacking the Person Fallacy: Attacking the person making the argument instead of the argument itself.
• Appeal to Authority Fallacy: Convincing someone that something is true simply because an important person said it.
• Post Hoc Fallacy: Thinking that because one thing happened after another, the first thing caused the second thing.
• Denying the Antecedent Fallacy: If the initial condition (P) is not met, the expected result (Q) also won't occur.
• Wrong Direction Fallacy: Reversed cause and effect.
• Complex Cause Fallacy: Assuming there's only one simple reason for something when, in reality, it's caused by multiple factors.
• Irrelevant Conclusion Fallacy: Proving one thing, but ending up talking about something else "Missing the point."
• Strawman Fallacy: Misrepresenting or exaggerating another person’s argument and then attacking that distorted version.
• Affirming the Consequent Fallacy: Agreement with the consequent leading to agreement with the antecedent (structure: If P, then Q; Q is true, therefore P is true).
• Denying the Antecedent Fallacy: Denial of the antecedent leading to denial of the consequent (structure: If P, then Q, P is false, therefore Q is false).