Student Response

A fallacy is a faulty argument that at first appears to be correct. (Boss, 2017 pp 137) This is something that is seen all the time, especially with social media. A lot of times with social media someone will see something that to them makes a lot of sense at first and then repost to others allowing this fallacy to be spread to others like wild fire. This can happen in day to day life as well but with the Internet it often travels faster.  It is not uncommon to read something and pass it on without knowing how much truth is actually in what is being passed on. Popular appeal, which is when we use popular opinion to gain support for our conclusion. (Boss, 2017, pp146) This is something I have done myself, not too long ago a resent something that everyone, myself included, thought to be true. I later found out that this was not the case, but passed it along without verifying if this was correct.  When a grammatical error in the premises allows more than one conclusion to be drawn or amphiboly (Boss, 2017, pp 140) is another way that a fallacy is created. This has happened at my job. When our new handbook came out there was something new added that with the way it was written, due to an error, the employees were interpreting it differently. This had to do with our lunches and clocking out at lunch time if we were leaving the property. Some of us felt that it was saying we could leave the property for lunch, while others were understanding that we were not allowed to leave at all. Of course it go cleared up, but there was obvious concern at the time. Lastly another that comes up in our office is accent, when the meaning of an argument changes according to which word or phrase in it is emphasized. (Boss, 2017, pp139). This happens in our office on a regular basis we have multiple different cultures in our office with others that are from different parts of the world. While it is nice to learn about the other cultures, sometimes thing can me misunderstood due to the differences in language. The office that I work in is a gastroenterology office so when someone in the office mentioned cologne, but pronounced it colon, there was a bit of confusion. This worked its way out,but especially in the office we work in the difference between colon and cologne needs to remain very clear.