In this activity, you will create a persuasive advertisement that intentionally incorporates logical fallacies, analyze your peers’ ads to identify their fallacies, and reflect on the impact of misleading arguments in advertising.

Discussion Instructions

STEP 1: Choose a product or service to advertise. It can be real or fictitious, such as food items, cleaning supplies, office supplies, furniture, event tickets, or services like tutoring, lawn care, or painting.

Then, design an advertisement that includes at least three logical fallacies from this module. Do not explicitly name the fallacies in your ad—make them obvious enough for others to recognize that you are exaggerating or manipulating claims. Your ad can be a print ad, radio ad (max 1 minute), or video ad (max 2 minutes). You may use whatever format or program you’d like (PhotoShop, Microsoft PowerPoint, Prezi, Canva, YouTube, etc.). Your submission should include links to all of the resources you used to develop your advertisement.

STEP 2: Post your advertisement to the discussion forum.

STEP 3: Reply to two classmates’ ads (in at least 75 words) by analyzing their use of fallacies:

• Identify the fallacies you think they used and explain why.
• How do the logical fallacies used create different emotional or psychological effects on the audience?
• Elaborate on their post by thinking of other examples of those same logical fallacies or other ways they could include even more logical fallacies in a similar advertisement.

STEP 4: At the end of the week, return to your original post and let everyone know which logical fallacies you included in your advertisement.

Rubric