Defining, exemplifying, and explaining why one logical fallacy is dangerous to modern American culture
In this option, you’ll leverage your weekly Definition handouts to create a 2-3 page paper that explains one logical fallacy to a general audience, offering ways for the audience to recognize it and understand the motive behind it.
For example, you may choose to explain the Red Herring fallacy with cited examples and definitions, and your larger mission would be to educate your audience on what this fallacy looks like and how it permeates our culture in messages we see every day, perhaps without realizing it.
Or you may choose the same fallacy, define and give examples, then explain how a rhetor can leverage that fallacy to keep an audience’s attention for a larger message.
Remember: if you leverage the fallacy for anything but a positive intention, you’ll want to explain why and justify that choice.
- Your introduction will start broad, narrowing down to the thesis.
- You’ll cite any facts you use in the open in APA format. Cite at least 3 sources.
- Your thesis should foreshadow the specific main ideas in the body paragraphs:
- X is important because of main idea 1, 2, 3—that’s the basic format where we start for the thesis, to ensure that we keep in mind that relationship between the main ideas in the body paragraphs and the thesis for the whole paper. The thesis is a foreshadowing of what the body paragraphs will develop, so they must work in tandem.
Therefore, we’ll write our body paragraphs first—working on them in our assignments during the course. All body paragraphs in the Portfolio Project must be written on the Paragraph Plan, and we’ll complete paragraph plans on each fallacy to get us in that mindset during the semester.
You are encouraged to use any of those paragraph plans from the weekly assignments in your final paper. We are here to grow as we go, right?
When writing the final paper, we start with Global Concerns—focus, development, and organization—the paragraph plans that inform the thesis and how we organize those ideas.
We get our body paragraphs written, then write that thesis. From there, we write the broad introduction that narrows to the thesis, and we write the conclusion that 1. Restates the thesis, 2. Offers any key final points and 3. Gives the reader a look ahead or a call to action.
Once those elements are in place, we are ready to focus on those local concerns: style and conventions. To cite all facts properly in APA format, we want to visit the CSU Global APA Resources and visit the Writing Tutors as needed.
And for conventions—grammar, usage, and mechanics, we proofread carefully at the end of the writing process, once we are sure that all elements of the writing process are in place and ready to be proofread.