Fallacies Recognition Assignment

Purpose: People everywhere practice faulty and illogical reasoning.  You will find yourselves and me guilty of it.  The human mind is always looking for shortcuts to understanding, and it will, at times, use shortcuts that upon closer examination prove not to be effective.  The purpose of this assignment is to become more familiar with some of the ineffective shortcuts so that conclusions you reach and hear can be reconsidered more carefully.

Approach: The approach is simply to act as a collector.  You are to read and understand the fallacies listed and then find two examples in the political rhetoric around right now.

Learning Objectives:

·       Recognize ineffective shortcuts in reasoning

·       Better assess analysis

·       Practice more rational analysis

·       Improve analytical writing

Fallacies (found at http://www1.ca.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/)