Fallacies in Writing: Tips for Finding Fallacies in Your Own Writing

1. Pretend you disagree with the subject or topic you are defending. What is it about your arguments that now seem a little bit strange? If you were opposing your paper, what parts would you attack? These are the areas that you need to give special attention to. Sometimes you need to think like whomever it that is reading your paper.

2. Make a list of the main points in your paper. Under each point give the supporting facts. Looking at your points this way may help you to realize that you really don’t have very many facts for a particular claim. It may even cause you to take a different approach in writing the paper which may lead to a better paper.

3. Look for a fallacy in previous work and make sure and check for ones similar to it in your paper. It may be that you have too much opinion and not enough supporting facts, for example.

4. Be aware that broad claims need more proof than narrow ones. Be cautious in using sweeping words like: all, no, none, every, always, never, no one, and everyone, they may sometimes be appropriate but they require a lot more supporting facts than less-sweeping words like: some, many, few, sometimes, usually, and so forth.

5. Double check your characterizations of others, especially your opponents; be sure they are accurate and fair. This can help prevent logical fallacies.