Visual Information

How to read visual information, such as charts, graphs, and photos.

Why authors select particular visuals to convey certain types of information to their readers.

How to create visuals to help you remember information your have learned from your texts.

Purpose of Visual Aids?

Visual aids provide a quick, easily accessible format for information that shows how information is connected and/or the meaning.

Types of Visual Aids in Textbooks

Charts and tables

Diagrams

Illustrations

Graphs – bar graphs, line graphs, pictographs, and pie graphs

Photographs

Time Lines

Creating Visual Aids

Outlines

Mind Maps

Charts

Matrices

Free Form Drawings



Guide for Selecting a Visual Aid

Charts – compare data

Diagrams – represent places, things, processes

Photographs – show actual events

Outlines – show linear organization

Time Lines – represent chronology of events

What If I’m Not an Artist?

You don’t need to be an artist to make effective visuals.

Visuals only have to make sense to you.

Visuals should be labeled so that you remember key information.





Visual Information Vocabulary

Charts

Diagrams

Outlines

Bar Graphs

Pie Graphs

Photographs

Free-Form Drawings

Illustrations

Line Graphs

Tables

Time Lines

Mind Maps

Concept Maps

Pictographs

Forty-four Foul Ways to Win an Argument

from The Thinker's Guide to Fallacies

1	Accuse Your Opponent of Doing What He is Accusing You of (or worse)
2	Accuse Him of Sliding Down ASlippery Slope (that leads to disaster)
3	Appeal to Authority
4	Appeal to Experience
5	Appeal to Fear
6	Appeal to Pity (or sympathy)
7	Appeal to Popular Passions
8	Appeal to Tradition or Faith ("the tried and true")
9	Assume a Posture of Righteousness
10	Attack the person (and not the argument)
11	Beg the Question
12	Call For Perfection (Demand impossible conditions)
13	Create a False Dilemma (the Great Either/Or)
14	Devise Analogies (and Metaphors) That Support Your View (even if they are misleading or "false")
15	Question Your Opponent's Conclusions
16	Create Misgivings: Where There's Smoke, There's Fire
17	Create A Straw Man
18	Deny or Defend Your Inconsistencies
19	Demonize His Side Sanitize Yours
20	Evade Questions, Gracefully
21	Flatter Your Audience
22	Hedge What You Say
23	Ignore the Evidence
24	Ignore the Main Point
25	Attack Evidence (That Undermines Your Case)
26	Insist Loudly on a Minor Point
27	Use the Hard-Cruel-World Argument (to justify doing what is usually considered unethical)
28	Make (Sweeping) Glittering Generalizations
29	Make Much of Any Inconsistencies in Your Opponent's Position
30	Make Your Opponent Look Ridiculous ("lost in the laugh")
31	Oversimplify the Issue
32	Raise Nothing But Objections
33	Rewrite History (Have It Your Way)
34	Seek Your Vested Interests
35	Shift the Ground
36	Shift the Burden of Proof
37	Spin, Spin, Spin
38	Talk in Vague Generalities
39	Talk Double Talk
40	Tell Big lies
41	Treat Abstract Words and Symbols As If They Were Real Things
42	Throw In A Red Herring (or two)
43	Throw in Some Statistics
44	Use Double Standards (Whenever you can)

Fallacies in Thinking

The Thinker's Guide to Fallacies: The Art of Mental Trickery and Manipulation

It is for this reason that cultivation of intellectual virtues is so crucial to human development. Without a long-term transformation of the mind, little can be done to produce deep ly honest thought. When challenged, the human mind operates from its most primitive intellectual instincts. This can be verified in the history of politics, economics, religion, and war -indeed in any history that deeply plumbs the human mind in action.

Consequently, it is important to learn to recognize the most common tricks of persuasion, that we might better understand ourselves and others. Used on others, fallacies are intellectually indefensible tricks of persuasion and manipulation; used on ourselves, they are instruments of self-deception.

In this guide we concentrate on the most common and flagrant intellectual tricks and snares. Sometimes these tricks are "counterfeits" of good thinking. For example, a false dilemma is the counterfeit of a true dilemma. We shall see this most obviously in dealing with errors of generalization and comparison.

Mistakes Versus Fallacies

“What about mistakes?" you might ask. Isn't it possible that some of the time we commit fallacies inadvertently, unintentionally, and innocently? The answer is, of course, yes. Sometimes people make mistakes without any intention of tricking anyone. The test to determine whether someone is merely making a mistake in thinking is relatively simple. After the mistake is pointed out to the person, and the person is explicitly faced with the problems in the thinking, observe to see whether he or she honestly changes. In other words, once the pressure to change is removed, does the person revert to the original fallacious way of thinking, or does he demonstrate that he has truly been persuaded (and modified his thinking (accordingly)? If the person reverts, or invents a new rationalization for his behavior, we can conclude that the person was using the fallacy to gain an advantage and not making a simple mistake.

There is No Exhaustive List of Fallacies

It is not possible to create an exclusive and exhaustive list of fallacies. The intellectual tricks, traps, and snares humans so commonly engage in (or fall prey to) can be described from many differing standpoints and in a variety of differing terms. In this guide, we deal only with those most common or most easily recognized. There is nothing sacred about our list or our analysis. Here is a list of common problems in human thinking. See if you can add to this list. It is common for people (in their thinking) to:

• be unclear, muddled, or confused

• jump to conclusions

• fail to think-through implications

• lose track of their goal

• be unrealistic

• focus on the trivial

• fail to notice contradictions

• use inaccurate information in their thinking

• ask vague questions

• give vague answers

• ask loaded questions

• ask irrelevant questions

• confuse questions of different types

• answer questions they are not competent to answer

• come to conclusions based on inaccurate or irrelevant in.formation

• use only the information that supports their view

• make inferences not justified by their experience

• distort data and represent it inaccurately

• fail to notice the inferences they make

• come to unreasonable

conclusions

• fail to notice their assumptions

• make unjustified assumptions

• miss key ideas

• use irrelevant ideas

• form confused ideas

• form superficial concepts

• misuse words

• ignore relevant viewpoints

• fail to see issues from points of view other than their own

• confuse issues of different types

• lack insight into their prejudices

• think narrowly

• think imprecisely

• think illogically

• think one-sidedly

• think simplistically

• think hypocritically

• think superficially

• think ethnocentrically

• think egocentrically

• think irrationally

• be incompetent at problem solving

• make poor decisions

• lack insight into their own ignorance

Textbook Marking -- ucc.edu link

Web Link: Textbook Marking

http://www.ucc.vt.edu/stdysk/stdyhlp.html

Cinderella of the 21st Century

Cinderella of the 21st Century

Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters disliked her. They bought themselves beautiful clothes and gifts and went to all of the important social events, but Cinderella wore rags and had to stay home. On the night of the Prince’s Ball, the stepmother and stepsisters wore beautiful gowns and jewels, and they left Cinderella at home to clean the fireplace. But Cinderella’s fairy godmother appeared and turned Cinderella’s rags into a beautiful gown. Then the fairy godmother, whose powers were granted to her for all eternity, found a pumpkin and turned it into a gold-plated automobile; she turned a mouse into a chauffer; and Cinderella rode to the Prince’s Ball in grand style.

Now read each of the following statements and indicate in the space provided whether you think they are true (T), false (F), or questionable (?). Provide one reason for each of your judgments.

1. Cinderella had more than one stepsister.

2. Cinderella’s natural mother was dead.

3. The stepmother and stepsisters went to many social events.

4. Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters didn’t buy any beautiful clothes for Cinderella.

5. A pumpkin can’t be turned into a gold-plated automobile.

6. The stepmother and stepsisters disliked Cinderella.

7. Cinderella’s stepmother or stepsisters made Cinderella stay home when they went to the important social events.

8. The step mother and stepsisters offered to take Cinderella to the Prince’s Ball with them.

9. Cinderella walked to the Prince’s Ball.

10. Cinderella wanted to go to the Prince’s Ball.

11. The stepmother and stepsisters left Cinderella home on the night of the Prince’s Ball.

12. Cinderella rode to the Prince’s Ball in a carriage drawn by six white horses.

13. Although the stepmother and stepsisters had beautiful clothes, they never bought clothes for themselves.

14. The stepmother and stepsisters went only to social events that were important.

15. Cinderella’s fairy godmother was an evil in disguise.

Fallacies -- Latin and Common Names

Adapted from http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/

Ad Hominem, Circumstantial

See Guilt by Association.

Ad Ignorantiam

See Appeal to Ignorance.

Ad Misericordiam

See Appeal to Emotions.

Ad Novitatem

See Bandwagon.

Ad Numerum

See Appeal to the People.

Ad Populum

See Appeal to the People.

Ad Verecundiam

See Appeal to Authority.

Non Causa Pro Causa

This label is Latin for mistaking the “non-cause for the cause.” See False Cause.

Non Sequitur

When a conclusion is supported only by extremely weak reasons or by irrelevant reasons, the argument is fallacious and is said to be a non sequitur. However, we usually apply the term only when we cannot think of how to label the argument with a more specific fallacy name. Any deductively invalid inference is a non sequitur if it also very weak when assessed by inductive standards.

Example:

Nuclear disarmament is a risk, but everything in life involves a risk. Every time you drive in a car you are taking a risk. If you’re willing to drive in a car, you should be willing to have disarmament.

The following is not an example: “If she committed the murder, then there’d be his blood stains on her hands. His blood stains are on her hands. So, she committed the murder.” This deductively invalid argument commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent, but it isn’t a non sequitur because it has significant inductive strength.

Obscurum per Obscurius

Explaining something obscure or mysterious by something that is even more obscure or more mysterious.

Example:

Let me explain what a lucky result is. It is a fortuitous collapse of the quantum mechanical wave packet that leads to a surprisingly pleasing result.

Petitio Principii

See Begging the Question


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