I have a friend who likes to tell me about disagreements he has with others. When he tells me about his arguments with his friends, family, or coworkers, he likes to discredit the other side by ventriloquizing his opponents in a baritone and belligerent voice, his mouth drooping, his eyes wide so as to really make it clear: this person who disagreed with me is a dope…
Read MoreAs communication technologies change, so too does digital etiquette. There are ever-evolving, unspoken rules, for instance, to the art of liking or commenting on a friend’s Instagram post. Periods, exclamation points, and no punctuation at all can communicate a wide range of emotions and inflections in a text message. Most teenagers seem to know these rules intuitively.Yet many teenagers are clueless when it comes to emailing professors and college admissions officers. If you’re a college-bound high school student, you need to master the intricacies of email etiquette—or risk offending the wrong people.
Read MoreFor nearly as long as I can remember, I have heard media pundits, teachers, and peers mention the slippery slope by name—not as a logical fallacy, but as the basis for an argument. As it happens, the slippery slope is one of the best-known and least-understood logical fallacies. What follows is devoted to explaining what the fallacy is, how it is erroneously deployed, and why it all matters.
Read MoreDichotomies place two terms in opposition. The problem is that they’re often false. Such terms are often not mutually exclusive or exhaustive. That is, these terms can sometimes overlap, or we’ll find there’s a third or fourth option that such dichotomies conceal...
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