Blog #3

The importance of evaluating information, in light of fallacies, is that sometimes they can alter our decisions. This can lead some people astray. For example, a high school student that doesn’t have too many friends sees a commercial on the television about a kid about her age who has all these designer clothes, the newest phone and an expensive sports car. The girl in the commercial has a ton of friends around her and she is smiling and very happy. This can give the girl the idea that just because she buys all these things, she will be popular.

            The only time some of the fallacies are “acceptable” is when it is opinion based, such as saying you have to world’s best candy. Not everyone would think that is the world’s best candy and most everyone knows this to be true.

Blog #2

Lincoln should have talked more about some of the struggles of slaves to appeal more to the pathos aspect of rhetoric. He also could have talked more about religion and tell specific stories from slave’s lives’.

If Lincoln’s speech only appealed to ethos, not everyone would be affected or moved by what he was saying, only the people who had the strongest appeal to ethos. Speakers need to appeal to all form of rhetoric. Rhetorics typically provide heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations.