Chapter 17

Chapter seventeen is about fallacies of argument. The Chapter begins by explaining what fallacies are, it defines the word as arguments that are flawed by their very nature or structure. Fallacies can attack those against your argument by using reasonable criticism. Although, often times they are strategies that hurt everyone, even the person using them. 

Fallacies of Emotional Argument:

-scare tactics: which can be used to persuade people by making them scarred or fearful.

-either-or Choices: this can be used as a way to simplify an argument by giving people less options, you have one or the other. Making the choices the audience has more likely in your favor. For example: "Either you do your HW and get money for good grades or I'll take your cell phone away." 

-slippery slope: this strategy is very similar to scare tactics. It's an exaggeration of the consequences of an action, basically used to frighten people. 

-sentimental appeals: use of tender emotions excessively to distract readers from facts. It captures the heart over the mind. 

-bandwagon appeals: urge people to follow the same path everyone else is taking. Just what everyone goes through growing up, telling our parents that our friends have or can do this or that, why can't I? A phrase often said is "Well, if they jumped off of a bridge, would you jump too?" 

Further on in the chapter it talks about Faulty Analogies, which are caparisons that give ideas greater presence and help clarify. Once a comparison is extended it becomes an analogy, which is understanding unfamiliar ideas by comparing them with something that's already known. This can be very useful and helpful in an argument, letting the readers/audience have a clear understanding, especially when something is compared to what's going on in the world today. 

Chapter Thirteen

In Chapter thirteen of Everything's an Argument, it informs us about style and presentation in arguments. Every augment has its own style, there are three basic styles of communication which are: high (formal and serious) , middle (understandable and clear), and low (informal, everyday or humorous).  When putting an argument together and thinking about its style you must consider your choice of words, it's important to choose the right vocabulary and words to match your tone. You must also think about the sentence structure, a variety of sentences can help keep the reader involved. Another important element in writing an argument is punctuation, consider choices of punctuation closely! Know when to put a period, comma, or semi-colon. 

Special effects in an argument prefigurative language like a metaphor, simile, analogy, and schemes. In reading the special effects section of this chapter I found schemes most interesting. Schemes can add "zing" to an argument. 

Here are different word order choices:

-Parallelism: using similar phrases or clauses for special effect. 

-Antithesis: the use of parallel structures used to mark contrast or opposition. 

-Inverted word order: parts of a sentence or clause are not in the usual subject-   verb-object order (makes argument memorable)

*this was my favorite out of all of the schemes

one of the examples given in the book was:

" Hard to see, the dark side is." --Yoda

-Anaphora: effective repetition

-Reversed structures (which is often used in politics)

I find this very helpful because to be honest, I hardly ever think about the many ways I can order my word choices and this chapter gives great examples! This is definitely a great tip to think about when writing a paper, rather than leaving it dull and boring, this can be very effective keeping the reader entertained. It's definitely something to think about.