Criticism of other's writings

I have noticed in many arguments and essay papers out there, there are many common fallacies in the arguments and claims people use. This tends to occur when there is no vast clear evidence to support their claims and they use fallacies because they sound convincing and true, when really they aren't. The logic isn't there in the writing, and often times makes the paper weaker in the end. I feel that many people suffer from this same tendency. We learn in English classes to be persuasive and use convincing language, but little stress is placed on the actual argument. So we train ourselves to argue in circles and reiterate a point in numerous different ways. I feel that with more emphasis on logic and reason we can learn to avoid fallacies in our arguments.

Criticism of my own writing

As I look back through my old essays that I have wrote for my other English classes, I notice a perpetual pattern of lack of support. I feel that I have good ideas and answer the question or topic at hand completely, but I have very few quotes to support my actual claims. I also notice that I am prone to only one way of citing quotes, which makes it harder for me to actually use quotes in my work. Also many of my sentences are overcomplicated rather than just a simple statement. In this manner I tend to lean towards fallacious arguments that sound convincing, but ultimately fall short.