What's Your Weakness?

1. Appeal to Pity The speaker tries to gain your support by making you feel sorry for him or someone else.
2. Appeal to Flattery The speaker tries to persuade us to buy or believe by flattering us on our personal appearance or our behavior or in some other way.
3. Appeal to Ridicule The speaker wants to get us to accept a certain proposition by poking fun at those who oppose the proposition. The speaker does not try to win an argument with logic but rather by "putting down" the opponent or the opposing idea.
4. Appeal to Prestige The speaker asks you to buy or believe by suggesting that such an action will gain prestige for you. You will increase your social standing, culture, taste, and so on, if you do what the speaker wants.
5. Appeal to Prejudice The speaker tries to get you to buy a product or agree with a proposal by appealing to one or your known prejudices for or against something. The Prejudice category in Section A refers to prejudice on the part of the speaker. Here in Section D, the speaker is not necessarily prejudiced, but is appealing to YOUR known prejudices to get you to buy or take action.
6. Bargain Appeal You are asked to buy by appealing to your desire to save money.
7. Folksy Appeal The speaker tries to convince you he is "one of the guys," a real "member of the family." The approach is informal, with a "personal touch."
8. Join the Bandwagon Appeal This approach asks you to act a certain way because that is what is popular. "Everybody's doing it!"
9. Appeal to Practical Consequences You should buy or believe for your own good; otherwise the results will be harmful. There is an implicit or explicit threat that bad consequences will follow from doing or not doing something. The consequence does not have to be for you; it could be something that affects a friend or relative, your city or school, etc.
10. Passing from the Acceptable to the Dubious The speaker makes one or more acceptable statements, then tries to draw a conclusion that is "dubious" (which means "doubtful" or "questionable"). The listener is "led down the path" and lulled by statements that he agrees with. Then the argument ends with a "zinger" that is not acceptable.