Our very first one :)

The 7 Steps of Highly Cool People.

We, The Geeks think that this article is fun to read. It is definitely not the usual full of facts article. The points given are actually relevant to the issue which is about the definition of the real cool. However, this article does not have a strong reference or even facts, it is merely a personal opinion. In fact, there are quite a few fallacies that can be found in the article. Firstly, there is clearly the use of appeal to inappropriate authority. For example, the author wrote that the readers should closely follow the seven steps by the statement “Because i am an adult and i know better...because i am ‘The Guru of Cool’ ”. The question is, can we put our trust in adults to know the definition of ‘cool’?

            

          Beside that, there is also the use of a type of fallacy, which is slippery slope. It is obvious by the statement “It makes your teeth go yellow and gives a pungent stench to your sweat”. These are all the bad effects of smoking. Through the statement of “I know, i know, some of you are allowed to drink alcohol when you come of age”, there is definitely a presence of appeal to tradition.

          

          To put it simply, we believe that this article is fun to read but it is not actually a good and balanced article due to a few fallacies used. A good article should be one that has an appeal yet full of acceptable reasoning.

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