Nota bene: 1. Informal fallacies are highly sensitive to context. Even ad hominems can be valid under the right circumstances. 2. In actual arguments, trottin

Nota bene: 1. Informal fallacies are highly sensitive to context. Even ad hominems can be valid under the right circumstances. 2. In actual arguments, trotting out fancy-sounding fallacy names is rarely the correct play. You'll either be wrong and look foolish [1], or be right and look like a bully. It's lose-lose. Better to think of arguments like debugging: you need to explicitly step through the other side's statements, locate the problem(s), etc. (These are general observations from a former rhetoric and argumentation teacher. They're directed at no one in particular.) [1] Straw man, ad hominem, appeal to authority, and appeal to popularity seem to be the most common offenders.