Fallacy In Elections

Fallacies have become so much apart of the media that it is almost harder to find something in the public eye that is not fallacious. A prime example of a fallacy are adds or campaign slogans during a presidential election, or any campaign for that matter. All candidates use logical fallacies, such as the Ad Hominem argument, to bolster there view points and easily bash their opponent. There are common slogans, within this form of a fallacy, that are "attempting to refute an argument by attacking the opposition’s personal character or reputation, using a corrupted negative argument from ethos".  Candidates present fallacies that falsely depict both their arguments and plans and that of their opponents. This false sense of reality that helps sway voters can either bolster a candidate’s argument or falsely refute the opponents. In the most recent election, Obama was accused of presenting major fallacies in what he believed to be his healthcare package. In an attempt to refute Mitt Romney’s proposed package he stated that politicians would be choosing health care packages for the people. Other politicians criticized his awkward, manipulative phrasing and pointed out that under his proposed plan one of his appointees would be choosing you healthcare for you as well. This example is not intended to dive into the debate over healthcare or even over Romney and Obama, but to rather simply prove the fallacious ways of our public media. Some would argue that we are so fallacious as a public that it is hard to even see through them nowadays and the common appearance of fallacies in public doesn’t even make a difference anymore. I’d beg to differ.

What Haven't You Learned?

I’ve learned a tremendous amount this fall semester in Writing 140. As expected, I grew tremendously as a writer. But I was most impressed with my ability, with the help of Professor Adler, to hone in on the writing process itself. I learned how to effectively use all my time and make completely sure that at certain stages of the process, my paper was where it needed to be. I learned to plan ahead, do thorough research and ultimately write an articulate paper that is both argumentative and cohesive.

As for writing the literal paper, I learned a lot about formatting the overall paper, each paragraph and even each sentence. The detail in which we covered formatting gave me the confidence to dive more into my thoughts and thoroughly analyze knowing at the very least my formatting was effective. Once I learned to master the art of formatting, we dove into other aspects of the paper, such as the thesis, topic sentences and transitions. We took it slow and learned simple aspects of the thesis from our course book before we put it all together to make a complete, articulate thesis. I learned how to effectively use both topic sentences and methods of transition so that my paper, though it may have numerous points with different forms of evidence, flowed fluidly and correctly illustrated my argument.  There are other small things that I received in my edited papers that helped my paper greatly though the pointers seem to be small, and not need much change. Though I learned a lot about writing, one thing that I learned that I think is most important is knowing and understanding that your paper can always improve, and furthermore no matter how much you improve as a writer there are always things you can polish and improve in hopes of growing into a young Ernest Hemingway.