How To Win A Losing Argument By Distracting Your Reader From The Facts
We all hate hearing fallacies when we recognize them, but need to employ a few every now and then for our own papers to supplement our valid arguments. When reasoning against opposition that’s logically sound, however, building your assertions from the same pool of facts they draw from might not be the smartest way of going about your assertions. Rather than do something sensible, try distracting your readers onto something else.
Throw in irrelevant material. Introduce something new into the paper, one that may be tangentially related to the subject, but isn’t necessarily a part of the actual argument. Picked well, you can use them as an actual argument (albeit, falsely), forcing the audience to pull their conclusions from the new material. For an example, take the sentence, “Spending money helps the economy, so shop at our store.”
Attack the source of the opposing argument. Say you’re tasked with refuting a book’s ideas for a class paper. You peruse the work and find it to be argued soundly and simply, making the prospects of successful rebuttal unlikely. Rather than attack the ideas, you can try attacking the original author, painting the weakness of his arguments based on their own frailties.
Shift the burden of proof. Can’t put together a coherent argument? No problem. Just state the reasons why the opposing view needs to prove itself. It doesn’t make your case, but lists down a world of doubt for the opposing argument’s.
A well-written fallacy may not be the ideal way to construct a paper. Barring any room for a decent argument, though, it just might do. Just make sure you turn in a cleanly-written piece, duly picked through by a grammar assistant software, and you’ll be fine. Well, keep your fingers crossed.