Asking the Right Questions, A Guide to Critical Thinking, 8th Ed

Are There Any Fallacies in the Reasoning? 85
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Critical Question: Are there any fallacies in the reasoning?
Attention: A fallacy is a reasoning "trick" that an author might use while
trying to persuade you to accept a conclusion.
A Questioning Approach to Finding Reasoning Fallacies
There are numerous reasoning fallacies. And they can be organized in many
different ways. Many are so common that they have been given formal names.
You can find many lengthy lists of fallacies in numerous texts and Web sites.
Fortunately, you don't need to be aware of all the fallacies and their names to
be able to locate them. If you ask yourself the right questions, you will be able
to find reasoning fallacies—even if you can't name them.
Thus, we have adopted the strategy of emphasizing self-questioning
strategies, rather than asking you to memorize an extensive list of possible
kinds of fallacies. We believe, however, that knowing the names of the most
common fallacies can sensitize you to fallacies and also act as a language "short
cut" in communicating your reaction to faulty reasoning to others familiar with
the names. Thus, we provide you with the names of fallacies as we identify
the deceptive reasoning processes and encourage you to learn the names of
the common fallacies described on page 98 at the end of the chapter.
We have already introduced one common fallacy to you in our Dear
Editor example above. We noted that the writer personally attacked Senator
Spendall instead of responding directly to the senator's reasons. Seeing such
an argument, the critical thinker should immediately ask, "But what about
the arguments that Senator Spendall made?" The Dear Editor reasoning
illustrates the Ad Hominem fallacy. The Latin phrase Ad Hominem means
"against the man or against the person." There are a variety of ways of making
irrelevant attacks against a person making a claim, the most common of
which is attacking his character or shifting attention to his circumstances or
interests. Arguing Ad Hominem is a fallacy because the character or interests
of individuals making arguments usually are not relevant to the quality of the
argument being made. It is attacking the messenger instead of addressing the
message.
Here is another brief example of Ad Hominem reasoning.
Sandy: "I believe that joining sororities is a waste of time and money."
Julie: "Of course you would say that, you didn't get accepted by any sorority."