In addition to his 28 common topics, Aristotle also offers eight false topics, that is, forms of argumentation that do not generally work or that you should be on the look out for because they are especially easy to refute (can be refuted on formal grounds alone and are easily ridiculed, ridicule frequently being the hardest argumentative obstacle to overcome).
[false topic 1] Apparent enthymeme. A compact statement that masquerades in the form of reasoning when in fact there is no connection at all between statement and proof, or claim and maxim. Also, enthymemes that rely on homonyms (two completely different words that sound the same) a are fallacious.
[false topic 2] False division or combination.
[false topic 3] Exaggeration. As when one amplifies an action without proving that the act was ever performed -- like trying to convict someone of murder by making a long speech about how horrible the victim's demise was, an how undeserved, and how dastardly someone who could commit such a crime must be and how unsafe the streets will be as long as the murder is free, and so on without every proving that the accused committed the murder. This false reasoning is committed whenever one moves directly to the third level of stasis without having gone through the first two, whenever one is sentenced before being convicted.
[ false topic 4] Faulty cause and effect. One can discover this by means of conversion. All thieves are wicked men. Nixon was a thief (because he was a wicked man). But while all thieves are wicked men, not all wicked men are thieves.
[false topic 5] Accidental result. Asserting that an accident is a natural effect or a logical result of something.
[false topic 6] False assumption. Also called contentious reasoning, where you assume your audience accepts the premise of your argument when if fact they do not, or when you offer as a premise something that is questionable.
[false topic 7] Mistaking a temporal relation for a logical one. As when you notice that two things always happen one after the other and you falsely assume the first causes the second. When many people carry umbrellas, it will rain (because many umbrellas cause rain).
[false topic 8] Failure to consider context, location in time and space. This is sometimes called a hasty generalization, when you mistake a special example as a paradigm.