Exercise 1: Discussion

Discuss the questions below with a partner or group.

1. Have you read, watched, or listened to anything that had a fallacy in it?
2. When you read or watch something with fallacies, what do you feel or think as the audience?
3. Are you more convinced by fallacious support or fair support as a reader?
4. Do you tend to use any fallacies in your own writing or speaking?

Exercise 2: Matching

Match the fallacy to its example. Write the letter of the example next to the correct fallacy.

Exercise 3: Revising for fallacies

Revise the sentences below to avoid fallacies. Use strong, true rhetorical appeals instead.

Exercise 4: Revise for unity and development review

Review this student introduction paragraph for unity and development.

Prompt: Should economic globalization continue?

Today, globalization is the main topic for global trading and global politics.  It connects billions of people on Earth.  We can see the issues and solutions made by globalization.  It brings benefits and disadvantages in many ways.  Start with the prehistoric migration 100,000 years ago, through the era of Alexander the Great and the Genghis Khan Empire.  It continued in the great British Empire and the United States after WWII.  Until today, globalization never stops.

Exercise5: Revise for cohesion

Review this student's paragraph for cohesion. The paragraph has been broken into groups of two sentences. How would you improve the cohesion between these groups of sentences? Make any feedback or editing markings on the groups of sentences. Then, write the complete revised version of the paragraph on the lines below. 

Exercise 6: Revise a paragraph

Read the student paragraph and offer suggestions to the author. Is the body paragraph effective? Consider organization, using adequate sources, avoiding logical fallacies, etc. 

          Many people sustain that electric vehicles are going to be the only cars that are going to be sold in the market, but this is not true because of the high number of gasoline cars that are in production today. Recently, Volvo claimed that after 2019, gasoline cars are going to disappear, and the electric vehicles are going to be in the roads all over the world (CNN,2017). Furthermore, there were sold around 873,000 electric vehicles worldwide in 2016, helping that the number of electric vehicle use goes up to 1,2019,000 around the world (CNN, 2017; Statista, 2017). This looks to be a good number for a project that started a few years ago. On the other hand, the typical fuel car has been on top of the market for more than 50 years. Starting in 1901 with the first Mercedes car, designed by Wilhelm Maybach (History.com, 2010), companies are trying to build more and more of these cars. At the beginning of the 21st century, car companies’ worldwide production was 58,374,162 cars, where the USA produced 21.93% of them (OICA, 2000). Since 2000, the car production arose 62.7%, with China producing only 29.6% of them (OICA, 2016). Based on this numbers, electric vehicles seem to have a long trial to walk in order to win the market and the production of a normal fuel car. Thus, gasoline cars are not going to disappear in 2019.

Exercise 7: Peer Review

Read a partner's essay and review its use of rhetorical appeals. 

• Do you see any good uses of ethos, pathos, and/or logos?
• Do you see any fallacies or misuses of ethos, pathos, and/or logos?

Mark and label any effective rhetorical appeals or fallacies you find in their writing. 

Exercise 8: Check your essay

1. Does the introduction provide the general information a reader needs in order to understand the topic?
2. Does the introduction end with an effective thesis? Does it clearly show your opinion?
3. Do each of the body paragraphs begin with an effective topic sentence?
4. Are the body paragraphs sequenced in a logical order?
5. Look at each body paragraph. Do the supporting sentences support the topic sentence?
6. Look at each body paragraph. Are the supporting sentences sequenced in a logical order?
7. Look at each body paragraph. Is there enough development? Are there more details or examples that would help the reader?
8. Look at each body paragraph. Does the concluding sentence close the paragraph logically?
9. Does the conclusion paragraph start by restating the thesis?
10. Does the conclusion paragraph have a suggestion, prediction, or opinion at the end?
11. Do you have any grammar errors that interfere with the reader understanding your ideas?
12. Do you include cited sources accurately? Do you have in-text citations for all summaries, paraphrases, and quotes? Do you list all the sources you used on the reference page?