WorksheetsPersuasive and Rhetorical Devices and Logical Fallacies
Total questions: 10
Worksheet time: 8mins
What is the main purpose of using persuasive devices in your writing?
Appeal to the emotions of your reader.
Make your writing more interesting to read.
To get the reader to adopt your view.
To entertain the reader.
Hasty Generalization
An inference drawn from insufficient evidence.
Ex: My new Toyota broke down, so all Toyotas must be poorly made.
Using fear to sway people by exaggerating possible dangers well beyond their statistical likelihood
Ex: "If you don't buy this product, you risk injury and death."
Playing on readers' emotions to distract them from the facts
Ex: ASPCA ads effectively designed to make you feel like a heartless jerk if you don't donate.
Unfair oversimplification of an issue by providing only two options as a possible solution
Ex: "If you aren't first, you're last."
Arguments urging you to follow the same path that everyone else is taking
Ex: This technique is commonly used to sway these two groups: teens and voters
Bandwagon
Ad Hominem
Slippery Slope
Straw Man
Ad Hominem
In Latin, this means: to the man. When you attack a person's character instead of the quality his/her ideas.
Ex: Oh please , what do you know about labor laws? You don't even have a job.
Misrepresenting or twisting someone's argument so it's easier to attack and knockdown
Ex: Wife: I'd rather have a dog than a cat.Husband: Why do you hate cats?
Using fear to sway people by exaggerating possible dangers well beyond their statistical likelihood
Ex: "If you don't buy this product, you risk injury and death."
Arguments urging you to follow the same path that everyone else is taking
Ex: This technique is commonly used to sway these two groups: teens and voters
(a) is the misuse of an authority's opinion to support an argument. While an authority's opinion can represent evidence and data, it becomes a fallacy if their expertise or authority is overstated, illegitimate, or irrelevant to the topic.
We should stop using hairspray because it is snowing in New York.
hasty generalization
non sequitur
ad hominem
moral equivalence
What is the best definition for antithesis?
Comparing two extreme opposites for emphasis
Referring to a well-known person, novel, or institution
Repeating a word or phrase for emphasis
A question that has an obvious answer, only used to further an argument
What rhetorical device is used in the following quote:
"The nation cannot survive half slave and half free."
analogy
charged language
parallelism
antithesis
