• This discussion is an opportunity to exchange ideas and understanding of the technical aspect of academic writing: logical fallacies.
• Questions that you have, or public examples to offer, of the specific fallacies detailed in the Module can be shared here for the betterment of all.
  • Logical fallacies are often observed in slogan-like comments or posts online. If you were true Chinese, you would repost this
  • Reasoning errors, and the elements of the arguments are claim, support, and proof
  • Elements of argument
• Logical fallacies are reasoning errors in the development of an argument. Knowing the common types of fallacies can help writing essays more efficiently and clearly.

hasty generalization

• One of the common fallacies is hasty generalization which can happen when the evidence to support the claim is not representative. For example, a newspaper argues that the employment rate decreases when students pursue further advanced degrees after undergraduate college education based on a survey on the employment rate of the graduates holding an undergraduate degree or a graduate-level degree after 1 year of graduation from a university. However, the samples from the survey result may not be representative enough to support the claim in that the education of the undergraduate and graduate programs may differ in their quality of delivery, and the admitted students for these programs in different levels may also contribute to the poor employment rate of the graduates with an advanced education degree. To avoid these fallacies, the argument requires more details and conditions based on a close examination of the target, variables, and context of a survey referred to.

false analogy

• Another common type of fallacy is a false analogy between subjects that are not similar enough regarding the topic. For example, "the mobile payment using QR code is wide-adopted in developing countries in China, so the mobile payment method would thrive in a more developed country like Canada". Canada is quite different from China in terms of the financial sector and socioeconomic environments. It's not appropriate to compare the countries without further reasoning based on feasibility research of finance policies and people's perceptions of new mobile payment methods via QR codes.

faulty cause and effect

• Faulty cause and effect usually happen when a writer confuses the chronology of events with the relationship of causation. For example, "the successful development of the COVID-19 vaccination has reduced the infected cases in Canada." Reducing the infected cases of a virus relies on the success of the vaccination development first, but it also requires other processes or factors like the approval of the vaccination by the government, the vaccination administration to the population who are prone to be infected, as well as policies for people to maintain the physical distancing based on the nature of the virus transmission. Therefore, applying critical thinking to the analyzing the relationship between factors and subject can help develop an argument with more solid reasoning.