Lesson 6

For Further Study

1) Your local newspaper’s Letters to the Editor section is a great area to find logical fallacies in action. For several days, read these letters and identify all of the fallacies you find. Keep a log of the specific fallacies you find, dividing them by type. Once you have complied a variety of examples, take a step back and evaluate them. Questions to ask include: What fallacy, or fallacies, seem to be the most popular? Why do you think this is? Pick a few of the most atrocious fallacies and rewrite them correctly for the flaw in reasoning.

2) In this lesson, we have studied arguments by looking at their various parts. In practice, arguments occur as part of larger statements, or speeches, making their analysis a bit more complicated. To understand the ways arguments occur in daily life, watch the movie A Civil Action. Try to identify the major arguments that are set forth. What are the main claims? What are the sub-claims? What sorts of evidence or support are provided? Are there any fallacies present in the argument? If you were a speech writer, what advice would you give to improve the argument?

3) (2016) What is Critical Thinking? By Macat; YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnJ1bqXUnIM