Term	Definition	Example
Ad hominem	An attack on the character of the individual or the opponent rather than his or her actual arguments or qualifications	"Sam Smith divorced his loving wife of ten years. How could he be qualified to be mayor?"
Ad populum	An emotional appeal to positive concepts or negative concepts rather than a direct discussion of the real issue.	"You should vote for Tom Green because he stands for American values."
Begging the question	Loading the conclusion in the claim; assuming that something is true before it is proved	"Everyone knows that our ineffective drug control program is a miserable failure."
Circular argument	A sentence or argument that restates rather than proves	"President Reagan was a great communicator because he had that knack of talking effectively to the people."
Either/or	An oversimplification that reduces alternatives to only two choices, thereby creating a false dilemma	"Either we ban boxing or hundreds of young men will be senselessly killed."
Faulty comparison/False analogy	Basing an argument on a comparison of two things, ideas, events, or situations	"Teaching kids about sex education is like letting them loose in a candy store."
Genetic fallacy	Arguing that the origins of a person, object, or institution determine its worth	"He speaks with a funny German accent. He must be a Nazi.
Hasty generalization	Conclusion is not justified by sufficient or unbiased evidence	"Professor P. is a hard grader because he gave me a 36 on a biology test."
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc	Arguing that because Event B occurred after Event A, Event A caused Event B.	"Because I forgot to leave my porch light on, someone robbed my house."
Red herring	Avoiding countering an opposing argument directly by introducing a non-issue to the argument	"Equal pay for women is an important issue, but I wonder whether women really want to take the responsibility that comes with higher-paying jobs."
Straw man	Setting up an artificially easy argument to refute in place of the real issue	"Although Ms. Jackson has been accused of misusing state funds she has donated all of her income for the past three years to charity."