Common Fallacies in Arguments

You are also to review the 2 handouts on fallacies under Course Materials and use them to identify fallacies in any 5 Super Bowl ads from this Sunday’s game. Note: You can also watch them on You-Tube following the game. Summarize each before identifying one or more problematic uses of language–lexical, visual, and auditory (i.e., in word choice, in the sentence structure, in the meaning, in the pictures or the sounds and/or speed of the speech at certain points in the ad–some or all of which could exemplify an attack against a person, a generalization or a stereotype or bias of some type (age, gender, race, language). Finally, for each ad, ask yourself what revisions, if any, in the language used would eliminate the fallacies (3-5 lines per ad–one to summarize, 1-2 to identify the fallacies observed, and 1-2 to propose edits to the language employed).