The red herring fallacy, one of the many logical fallacies you might encounter in essays, speeches, opinion pieces, and even casual conversations, is an attempt to reroute a discussion from its original topic and focus on something unrelated.  Logical fallacies are so pervasive in our communication that they can be easy to miss—but once you know how to recognize them, you can catch them in your work and remove them before they undermine your arguments.

Red Herring Fallacy

A red herring is a misleading statement, question, or argument meant to redirect a conversation away from its original topic. The purpose of a red herring is to distract the reader or listener from the actual issue being discussed in a conversation or piece of writing. This isn’t always for nefarious purposes—sometimes, it’s a literary strategy used to keep readers in suspense.

Uses And Purpose Of The Red Herring Fallacy

Logical fallacies can be broadly divided into two categories: formal and informal fallacies. Formal fallacies are statements that are flawed because the structure of the statement itself is flawed. For example, the non-sequitur fallacy, the type of fallacy where the conclusion does not logically follow the premise, is a formal fallacy. Take a look at this example of the non-sequitur fallacy:If a food is cold, then it is a dessert. Salad is cold. Therefore, salad is a dessert.

Formal Fallacies

Informal fallacies are statements that are flawed because they lack a logically grounded premise. Rather than the statement being structurally unsound, the content presented in the statement doesn’t logically fit into its structure. Here’s an example of a red herring statement using the same content as our non-sequitur example above:If a food is cold, then it is a dessert. Salad is cold. But salad isn’t sweet, so it can’t be a dessert.

Informal Fallacies

In a debate, a participant might use a red herring to avoid discussing a topic for which they don’t have a well-developed position or if their position could make them look bad to the audience and media. Similar to a politician using a red herring in a debate, an individual might use a red herring in an argument to distract the other party from the criticism they’re making.

Areas Of Usage For Red Herring

In philosophy, red herrings function similarly to how they work in arguments and debates. The difference here is that they might be intentionally employed as a way to drive readers to think critically about a new argument. In pedagogy, such as in law school settings, red herrings might be worked into exams and study problems to test students’ comprehension of the information presented and their ability to reach the correct legal conclusion.

Red Herrings in Philosophy and Pedagogy

People use red herrings in nearly every kind of communication. These include the following:<ul><li>Persuasive essays</li><li>Argumentative essays</li><li>Debates</li><li>Speeches</li><li>Conversations</li><li>Storytelling</li><li>Emails</li><li>Blog posts</li></ul>Sometimes, speakers and writers make red herring statements inadvertently, either because they genuinely think the statement they’re making is relevant to the discussion or because they aren’t thinking critically about the statements they’re making.

Wide Usage Of Red Herring

Learn the meaning of red herring in rhetoric, and tips on how to avoid logical fallacies in your arguments, with examples.

Stashed ideas

Red Herring Fallacy, Explained

In the real world, people who know how to make themselves and their contributions seen (without being annoying about it) get ahead of their higher-performing peers all the time. As the work world shifts from an hours-worked mentality to a work-accomplished one, remote workers need to master the subtle art of “managing up” and be proactive in making sure their work is seen.

Managing Up For Remote Workers

If you’re a motorcycle mechanic, a rack of repaired motorcycles is a clear indicator you can point to after a hard day’s work. Similarly, the h-index is a grading score given to professors at research universities that ranks their impact in a chosen field. Both a high h-index and a rack of repaired motorcycles are easy metrics to point to that demonstrate your value.In a business environment, if the metrics that determine success for your position are unclear, it’s difficult to figure out where you stand in the organization or know if you’re doing a good job.

The Metric Black Hole

In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner.These vanity metrics might include how quickly you respond to an email or Slack DM or how many meetings you’ve attended over the past week. Those things constitute “work”, but they have next to no correlation to how much value you’re building for the company.

Pretending To Be Busy

Intensive value is derived from a specific skill you’ve developed over time.  You’ve established yourself as the domain expert in a specific part of the business.Extensive value is derived from your relationships with others. You’re viewed as a connector within an organization. You’re involved in moving multiple projects along. Team members depend on you to execute on a daily basis in order to keep things running smoothly.

Intensive Vs Extensive Value

Here are three steps knowledge workers can follow to naturally build and demonstrate value in their organizations (without coming off as arrogant jerks)<ul><li>Step 1: Understand the difference between intensive and extensive value.</li><li>Step 2: Build your own scorecard.</li><li>Step 3: Send regular updates.</li></ul>

How To Promote Yourself and Your Work

If your goal is to develop intensive value, you want to build clout around a specific area:<ul><li>Take classes and read books about the topic.</li><li>Take on extra side projects to tinker and experiment until you know virtually everything there is to know.</li><li>Join conversations within your organization and outside communities.</li><li>Reach out to influential people in your field and build mentorship relationships with them.</li></ul>

Developing Intensive Value

If your goal is to develop extensive value, relationships are key. Extensive value is built through getting involved in multiple areas throughout the organization.<ul><li>Build a thorough understanding of each department, how they’re interlinked, and the key projects going on at any one time.</li><li>Take the time to get to know people within your organization. Grab a cup of coffee with them and get to know what their strengths and goals are. What things at work naturally get them the most excited?</li><li>Offer to help colleagues out whenever you can. It’s a natural way to build strong connections at work.</li></ul>

Developing Extensive Value

Once you’ve decided which type of value you’re looking to build, you need to determine how you’re going to track your progress. Many positions come with built-in metrics that can be used to measure impact. If you’re a support professional, you might look at how many emails you have sent in a given day. Similarly, developers might look at the number of issues closed. These metrics can work, but they’re rarely sufficient to demonstrate the full value you bring to the table.

Building Your Scorecard

At the start of the year or quarter, identify the progress you want to make and how you’re going to measure success. Here are some tips:<ul><li>Select metrics that are easy to measure and highly valuable. You should be able to gauge progress from week to week.</li><li>Build a consistent narrative. If you’re changing up the scorecard each week, you’re not creating an easy narrative to follow. Consistency is key. Each week should build on the next.</li><li>Tie your metrics into the larger company picture. What are the top goals of your organization or team and how does what you’re working on move those forward?</li></ul>

Mapping Your Work

<a href="https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/okrs-objectives-key-results">Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)</a> is a popular framework for teams and individuals to set goals and measure progress. It’s a great way to build a concrete narrative around your accomplishments and the value you’ve created for the team.

Your OKRs

Each month, complete your own monthly performance review. Your scorecard should provide the foundation, but you can add in answers to questions:<ul><li>What major projects did you move forward with in the past month? How does that impact the overall business?</li><li>In what ways did you go above and beyond your normal responsibilities?</li><li>Looking back over your quarterly goals, where did you make progress?</li></ul>

Self Performance Review

You could send in a quarterly update to HR or send over a weekly email to your supervisor with a recap, or both. The cadence and medium will differ; the goal is still to keep everyone updated with our progress.There’s a fine line between demonstrating your value and overly boasting about your accomplishments. This fine line leads many to downplay their contributions in fear of coming across as a braggart.

Sending Regular Updates

<ul><li>If your annual performance review isn’t until December, it’s easy to forget what you worked on in March. This practice ensures nothing falls through the cracks.</li><li>You’ll get better at identifying and communicating your contributions.</li><li>Depending on the size of your organization, it can be difficult to keep track of everyone’s work. This helps out your supervisor and Human Resources department by keeping them up-to-date throughout the year and providing a paper trail to fall back on during a performance review.</li></ul>

Benefits Of Sending Recurring Updates

Make sure "out of sight" doesn't mean "out of mind". Learn the subtle art of managing up and be proactive in making sure your boss knows your value.

The Remote Worker's Guide to "Managing Up"

Six years ago, this book took the enigma of management and clarified it for me. It's the antidote to micromanagement and frees a manager and an employee to do their best work. One management strategy that stuck with me is the "one-minute Praisings".

1. One Minute Manager

Robert Kiyosaki grew up with a "poor dad" and retained the poor dad mindset through college. He realized that money can be managed to grow wealth and increase opportunities.

2. Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Nassim Taleb's Antifragile put words, data, stories, and brilliance to something I've sensed at a gut level but was never aware of. It Concretized this way of thinking: always be open to change by challenging everything.

3. Antifragile

by Mason Currey  This book eloquently and efficiently describes specific examples of famous creative people from history who remind me that I’m not batshit crazy for trying to create or do something out of the ordinary.

4. Daily Rituals

by Luke Sullivan  This is about how to write advertisements. It’s a jaunty book about moving people to buy with words and images (i.e., storytelling).If you write emails, CTAs, or social copy, you could probably benefit from the lessons in this book.

5. Hey Whipple, Squeeze This

Our best work comes from our basest desires. People do what they feel like doing. Strip away the fake morals, the shallow altruism of “second-handers,” and the prison of caring what people think you should do with your life and let yourself (and others) do your best, most authentic work. True impact and lasting goodness come from a central purpose in the individual.When working with people, discover their most core desires and liberate them to create. As a result, they will do their best work, they will love it, you will love it, and it will be beautiful, and everyone will love it.

6. The Fountainhead

Ron Willingham's ad is one that connects the buyer’s exact need to the seller’s exact product or service. If what you’re selling isn’t genuinely helpful to someone’s life, you are making one of three mistakes: 1) you are selling a thing to the wrong person, 2) you shouldn’t be selling the thing, or 3) the thing shouldn’t be sold at all (i.e., it’s a bad product or service)

7. Integrity Selling

by Patrick Lencioni  He tells the fictitious story of how an executive gives up his corporate job to own and manage an Italian restaurant in Lake Tahoe. It’s a simple story, but it illustrates brilliant points that helped me recognize if my job needed restructuring or if I’m fairly managing my expectations of someone over me.

8. 5 Signs of a Miserable Job

Austin Kleon paints a portrait of how secrecy kills a project and how opening up the creative journey is a powerful marketing strategy. "if you build it they will come" is out, replaced with "as you build it they will come"

9. Show Your Work

If you consider yourself ambitious, this book will help you assess the size of your ambition and how it is probably not — nor should it be — the size of someone’s like Steve jobs. If left unchecked, it can ruin the delicate balance of life satisfaction. Knowing my role in life and recognizing what it is and what it is not, helped me be at peace with tougher decisions.

10. Steve Jobs Biography

Stanley's book, Visioneering, taught him about Goal-Setting. He says you should always be shooting for something bigger and better. But don't let a process dictate the future. This creates shallow, sedentary thinking and Close-Mindedness. He says it instilled in him the value of setting a goal and taking action to achieve it.

11. Visioneering

Peterson's book 12 rules for life should be a welcomed read to someone who didn't grow up with a good relationship with their parents. "pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient."

12. 12 Rules For Life

Runaway millionaire is a novel about a family broken by greed, ambition, betrayal, and lust for power and restored by an unexpected, Transformative love. In retrospect, I think I saw myself as the son and God as the father character.

Bonus: Runaway Millionaire

This short list of books may not impress you — some of the books may even seem basic — but they were formative in my development as a person throughout my late teens, early twenties, and recent…

A Book Can Change Your Life. These 12 Books Changed Mine

When you're bored or unhappy or doing something unproductive, ask what could you be doing that would lead to greatness?

The epic alternative

Love is more beautiful with more stories. Inaction doesn't make a good story. If you want to stay motivated, live a life full of stories.

Take action

It is one’s ability to change (Albert Einstein). Change causes discomfort. Discomfort produces growth. Growth encourages learning. Learning brings happiness.

The greatest measure of intelligence

Take a big risk. Then write about it.  If you are unable to take risks, then interview someone who does take risks.

Live a story worth writing about

You can tell how smart a man is by the answers he gives, you can tell how wise he is by the questions he asks.

12. You can tell how smart a man is by the answers he gives, you can tell how wise he is by the questions he asks (Anonymous).

Avoid being aimless and mindless. If you can’t come up with a positive reason for why you’re doing something, don’t do it.

Be intentional

Saving money is good, but why restrict your living when you can creatively figure out a way to make more income? Create another income stream before trying to save.

Don’t just save money

You need to inhale in order to exhale, and you need to do both to live. If you don’t read, your writing will suffer. Read too much without writing, and you'll hurt. You need to do both.

Reading is inhaling, writing is exhaling

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster… treat those two impostors just the same (from Rudyard Kipling’s “If”). Success and failure are both the just fuel of life. You are far more than what you do.

You are more than you do

I ask myself this when I’m bored or unhappy or doing something unproductive. What could I be doing instead that would lead to greatness, for myself or others? Inaction is never a good story. I love…

18 Lessons I Live By

Here are some of the popular array-based coding interview questions for your practice:&nbsp;<ul><li>How do you find the missing number in a given integer array of 1 to 100?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you find the duplicate number on a given integer array?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you find the largest and smallest number in an unsorted integer array?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you find all pairs of an integer array whose sum is equal to a given number?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you find duplicate numbers in an array if it contains multiple duplicates?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How are duplicates removed from a given array in Java?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul>

Array Coding Interview Questions

Here are some of the most common and popular linked list interview questions and their solutions:&nbsp;<ul><li>How do you find the middle element of a singly linked list in one pass?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you check if a given linked list contains a cycle? How do you find the starting node of the cycle?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you reverse a linked list? ( solution )&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you reverse a singly linked list without recursion?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How are duplicate nodes removed in an unsorted linked list?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you find the length of a singly linked list?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul>

Linked List Programming Interview Questions

Here is my list of frequently asked string coding questions from programming job interviews:&nbsp;<ul><li>How do you print duplicate characters from a string?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you check if two strings are anagrams of each other?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you print the first non-repeated character from a string?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How can a given string be reversed using recursion?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you check if a string contains only digits?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How are duplicate characters found in a string?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you count the number of vowels and consonants in a given string?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul>

String Coding Interview Questions

Here is a list of popular binary tree-based coding questions from software engineer or developer job interviews:&nbsp;<ul><li>How is a binary search tree implemented?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you perform preorder traversal in a given binary tree?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you traverse a given binary tree in preorder without recursion?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you perform an inorder traversal in a given binary tree?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you print all nodes of a given binary tree using inorder traversal without recursion?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you implement a postorder traversal algorithm?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul>

Binary Tree Coding Interview Questions

<ul><li>How is a bubble sort algorithm implemented?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How is an iterative quicksort algorithm implemented?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you implement an insertion sort algorithm?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How is a merge sort algorithm implemented?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you implement a bucket sort algorithm?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you implement a counting sort algorithm?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How is a radix sort algorithm implemented?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>How do you swap two numbers without using the third variable?&nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul>

Miscellaneous Coding Interview Questions

There are a lot of computer science graduates and programmers applying for programming, coding, and software development roles at startups like Uber and Netflix; big organizations like Amazon…

Top 50 Data Structure and Algorithms Interview Questions for Programmers | by javinpaul | Javarevisited | Medium

If you want to get better at algorithms and data structures , you need a solid base. This base can be learned in one of several ways, either through a computer science program at university, <a href="https://www.hackreactor.com/blog/software-development-school-program-specifics-hiring-outcomes-housing-and-more">coding bootcamps</a>, or you can learn on your own from <a href="https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-books-to-learn-algorithms-and-data-structures-Are-there-any-good-blogs-posts-on-these-Which-books-explain-these-concepts-in-a-simpler-way">books </a>, videos, or <a href="https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-006-introduction-to-algorithms-fall-2011/">online </a>lectures. So you’ll need a basic understanding of the following topics to get started:

Fundamentals of algorithms and data structures

Before you get started, you'll need a basic understanding of data structures. Learn about arrays, linked lists, binary trees, hash tables, graphs, stacks, queues, heaps, and other fundamental data structures.

Data Structures

Excel at algorithms depends on some mathematical concepts from several different areas.  Learn about set theory, finite-state machines, regular expressions, matrix multiplication, bitwise operations, solving linear equations, important combinatorics concepts such as permutations, combinations, pigeonhole principle.

Math & Logic

Learn how data is represented in a computer, the basics of digital logic design, boolean algebra, computer arithmetic, floating-point representation, cache design. Try and learn some C and Assembly programming.

Computer Architecture

Once you feel like you have a good grasp on data structures, math, logic, and computer architecture, it’s time to start diving into the algorithms part. Learn what Big-O is and how to analyze the running times of algorithms. Implement several essential algorithms yourself and learn about their running times: For example:<ul><li>Binary search</li><li>Euclid’s algorithm</li><li>Depth and breadth first search</li><li>Dijkstra’s shortest path</li><li>Binary tree traversals</li><li>Insertion sort, Mergesort, Quicksort</li><li>Min & max heaps</li></ul>

Moving Forward Past the Fundamentals

<ul><li>Read the Algorithm Design Manual.</li><li>Introduction to Algorithms is a classic book that covers a lot of material. </li><li>Elements of Programming Interviews contains a lot of challenges and code solutions that will help you prepare for interviews. </li></ul>

Algorithm Books

<ul><li>Read as many algorithm explanations and code examples as you can on GeeksforGeeks. </li><li>Look at some interview questions posted on CareerCup and try and understand how other users solved the questions. </li><li>Aside from coding challenge sites, try and solve common coding interview questions you find online. </li></ul>

Algorithms Explanations & Interview Questions

A method for solving a complex problem is by breaking it down into a collection of simpler subproblems. Solve each of those subproblems just once, and store their solutions.  The next time the same subproblem occurs, instead of recomputing its solution, look up the previously computed solution, thereby saving computation time.

Dynamic Programming

<ul><li>Advanced Data Structures Lectures by Erik Demaine  </li><li>Algorithmic Lower Bounds: Fun with Hardness Proofs by Erik Demaine </li><li>Competitive Programmer’s Handbook  </li><li>The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Programming Contests  </li><li>AlgoWiki: A wiki dedicated to competitive programming </li><li>Computational Geometry problems and algorithms </li><li>List of NP-complete problems  </li><li>Open data structures book: implementation and analysis of data structures for sequences, Queues, priority Queues, ordered Dictionaries, and graphs.</li></ul>

Advanced Resources in Algorithms (optional)

Some of the resources in this article originally appeared in one of my comments on a reddit post that became quite popular. Here’s the original thread, and my new write-up is below. The first thing…

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Brandy Castillo
@brancast

Red Herring Fallacy, Explained

The Remote Worker's Guide to "Managing Up"

A Book Can Change Your Life. These 12 Books Changed Mine

18 Lessons I Live By

Top 50 Data Structure and Algorithms Interview Questions for Programmers | by javinpaul | Javarevisited | Medium

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Brandy Castillo@brancast

Red Herring Fallacy, Explained

The Remote Worker's Guide to "Managing Up"

A Book Can Change Your Life. These 12 Books Changed Mine

18 Lessons I Live By

Top 50 Data Structure and Algorithms Interview Questions for Programmers | by javinpaul | Javarevisited | Medium

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Brandy Castillo
@brancast