ENGL 1110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Circular Reasoning, Straw Man, Ad Hominem

• School: Memorial University
• Department: English
• Course: ENGL 1110
• Professor: Lucinda Austin- Bearns

Document Summary

Many things you can do to establish and maintain authority as a writer: especially in persuasive essays. Persuasive essay: makes a claim or takes a position and backs it up with statistics, expert opinions, and other evidence, goal is to persuade reader. Some other important things: make reasonable arguments. Make claims and then back them up. Must respe(cid:272)t reader"s opi(cid:374)io(cid:374) a(cid:374)d their i(cid:374)tellige(cid:374)(cid:272)e. They want to be convinced, not bullied. Must remain level-headed in your approach: making reasonable claims. Do(cid:374)"t say a(cid:374)ythi(cid:374)g that (cid:272)a(cid:374)"t (cid:271)e (cid:271)a(cid:272)ked up. If you (cid:272)a(cid:374)"t support it, do(cid:374)"t (cid:373)ake the (cid:272)lai(cid:373) This needs to be backed up by concrete information, either statistical or anecdotal evidence. Something of a combination of the above two. Policies are based on both facts and values. Need to rely on both forms of support for a policy-based persuasive discussion. Providing facts as well as values: avoiding logical fallacies. A fallacy is a deceptive or invalid argument.