Some fiction and non-fiction writers intentionally use red herrings to plant a false clue to lead readers or audiences toward a false conclusion. For example, in the novel The Da Vinci Code the author Dan Brown presents the character While the speaker uses the second sentence to support the first sentence, this argument does not address the topic. I recommend you support this because we are in a budget crisis, and we do not want our salaries affected.' 'I think we should make the academic requirements stricter for students. People claim someone is using a red herring when they assert an argument is not relevant to the issue being discussed. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a red herring may be intentional, or unintentional it is not necessarily a conscious intent to mislead. Unlike the straw man, which is premised on a distortion of the other party's position, the red herring is a seemingly plausible, though ultimately irrelevant, diversionary William Cobbett, the English polemicist, popularized the term in 1807 when he told a story about using a 'kipper' (a strong-smelling smoked fish) to divert hounds from chasing a hare.Īs an informal fallacy, the red herring falls into a broad class of relevance fallacies. May intentionally use a red herring, such as in mystery fiction or as part of a rhetorical strategy during a political argument. It may be a logical fallacy or a literary device that presenters use to lead readers and audiences toward a false conclusion. A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue.

Red herring fallacy referee