(Assertion not taken from competent source)

"Didn't you hear? Oprah said she was worried about mad cow disease!"

"My cousin Dave told me he heard somebody say this stock was going up, so we should invest in it now."

(Assertion not based on facts, but rather on popularity)

"It's really popular, so it must be OK."

"All the opinion polls say the president's popularity is very high, so it's clear that he's doing a good job."

(Assertion based on the supposition that whatever a thing was in the past, it always remains so)

"It was originally good/bad, so it must be right/wrong today."

"How can you vote Republican? Don't you know they were the party of segregation in the 1950's?"

(Assertion based on plausible but irrelevant reasons)

"Well, I didn't really like that color on a dress, anyway."

"We already had troops in Europe at the end of WW II; we should have gone ahead and fought Russia while we were there."

(Assertions are relevant but don't lead to stated conclusion)

"A, and B, and C; therefore 97."

(Conclusion is reasonable but assertions are irrelevant)

"13; because X, and Y, and Z."

(Assertion based on sympathy instead of objective evidence)

"Bad things have happened to me, so you should accept my conclusion."

"I say that all marriages are violent, and I've still got the scars my ex- left me to prove it."

(Assertion based on threat of harm instead of on relevant facts)

"If you don't accept my conclusion, bad things will happen to you."

"If you don't permit a confirmation hearing for an ambassador I like, I'll bottle up money for your state in my committee."

(Assertion based on reverence for past actions)

"We've stood for/against X for decades; you'll hurt us if you argue that we do otherwise."

"My father was a doctor, I'm a doctor--what do YOU want to be?"

(Assertion based on substituting listener's self-interest for objective analysis of general evidence)

"You'll suffer disproportionate loss if you don't support/reject X."

"You shouldn't vote for her. You're about to start getting a Social Security check, but she supports raising the start-of-benefits age."

(Assertion based on emotionalism)

"X is very good/bad; I'm for/against it, therefore I am a good person; if you want to be considered good, too, you'll agree with whatever I propose to do about it."

"We believe it's wrong to slash school lunch programs that keep children from going to bed hungry, as the other party proposes."

(Assertion based on listener's desire to remain well-thought-of by arguer)

"A smart person like you can surely see that . . ."

"I've heard a lot of good things about you, so I know I can count on your support."

(Assertion based on threatening loss of respect for listener)

"Sure. Stalin probably favored a single national language, too."

"I don't understand how you can support that candidate. Didn't you hear that the Ku Klux Klan has endorsed him?"

"His remarks probably sounded better in the original German."