A strawman fallacy is a fallacious argument that distorts an opposing stance in order to make it easier to attack. Essentially, the person using the strawman pretends to attack their opponent’s stance, while in reality they are actually attacking a distorted version of that stance which their opponent doesn’t necessarily support.
For example, if someone says “I think that we should give better study guides to students”, a person using a strawman might reply by saying “I think that your idea is bad, because we shouldn’t just be giving out A’s to everyone”.
Because strawman arguments are frequently used in discussion on various topics, it’s important to understand them. As such, in the following article, you will learn more about strawman arguments, and see what you can do in order to counter them successfully.