When Persuasion Fails:

Bias and Logical Fallacies

PROFESSOR EMMA SHEPPARD
SENECA COLLEGE; ENG 106
In This PPT…

 Discussing the Limits of Persuasion

 Overview of Logical Fallacies
Critiquing what we read

 An important part of critical reading is the ability to critique what we read and find its
limits.
 This is especially important with persuasion—sometimes what looks persuasive could be
manipulative, for example, or a text that tries to say it’s informational does in fact have
an argument.
 Having a critique doesn’t necessarily mean a text is all bad, it just means that we are able
to see the limitations or issues.
 We will look here at a couple of issues that persuasive texts can have
Bias

 A biased argument is one that is partial/skewed to one side over another.

 Having bias means making up your mind without looking at the evidence first, and not
letting your mind be changed.
 It’s important to understand that we all have biases and our own personal perspectives,
but the problem comes when we use those to shape our thinking at the expense of facts
and evidence and when, as writers, we don’t acknowledge what our biases are.
 As readers, it’s important to be able to identify bias—what isn’t a writer telling us? How
might their context affect the conclusions they’ve come to?
Logical Fallacies

 Bias, and the misuse of the persuasive appeals that you learned about in the last PPT
often result in something called Logical Fallacies
 Logical fallacies are a part of an argument (one sentence, idea, example, etc.) that are
trying to convince you of something but are doing so poorly.
 They may appear to be logical but in fact there’s something wrong and manipulative in
the logic
Learning Logical Fallacies

 There are many logical fallacies, and I don’t expect you to learn all of them, but to be
aware of their existence in both reading and writing.
 There are some logical fallacies listed here with definitions, and examples at the end.
 You may also consult the infographic posted on BB for more examples

 As you read through the definitions here, ask yourself: do any of these sound familiar?
Are there any examples you can think of that you’ve seen in the news, texts you’ve read,
etc.
Text and Images from https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman
Text and Images from https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem
Text & Image from: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority
 Also known as
FALSE
DICHTOMY

Text and Images from https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white

Text & Image from: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-texas-sharpshooter
Examples come from https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

Name that fallacy!

A

E
Examples come from https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

Name that fallacy!

A
Appeal to authority
or FALSE
Authority
B
B or W

C Sharp shooter

D
Ad Hominem

E
Strawman
To Sum Up

 This PPT has given you a small sampling of the issues to be on alert for in persuasion.
 As you read and consume media, ask yourself if you notice any of these fallacies.
 For more examples, there is an infographic posted on BB that may help clarify some of
these ideas.