English 2150 Blog

A fallacy is an error used mostly in advertisements and arguments to prove a point. Fallacies are both informal and formal. In most cases fallacies are bad examples when proving a point or when arguing on a specific side. Here are some the examples of fallacies from different advertisements:

For this ad the fallacy would be an appeal to authority. That is because the ad is using an Olympic athlete to show us that maybe drinking coke can make us an Olympic athlete. In reality tho we all know that she is just endorsing Coca Cola and drinking coke does not make you a better athlete, instead it can make an athlete worse.

I would say that this is another appeal to authority fallacy. The authority here is the doctor, and it states that more doctors smoke camel cigarettes than any other cigarette brand. We know that smoking is bad for our health, but the ad uses a doctor, who is suppose to keep us healthy, to show that their cigarette is supposed to be healthy. This ad is completely illogical.

This ad is an example of a non-sequitur because it is comparing to completely different things. This ad is comparing the shape of a women and a cigarette which are completely different things and are irrelevant to each other. This ad also seems to be targeting men because of the comparisons with the shape of a women. I think the ad is also offensive to women in many ways.

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