A good lake, not a great lake 64%

By The Curious City Team79%

7/8/2026, 10:00:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 16 faulty reasoning types, including Attempt to Sell a Product or Service, Ambiguity (Equivocation), and Biased Writer Voice, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 28.4% saturation with 40 hits. Analysis detected 360 faulty-reasoning hits from 141 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 58.6% and a BS Rank of 64% (7,927 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 63.80% of the article peer group.

For a brief time in 1998, there were six Great Lakes instead of five. 
The change quickly made national headlines, and Midwesterners took notice. 
They were shocked and outraged. 
Wedged between New York and Vermont, Lake Champlain is long, skinny, and relatively small  only 435 square miles. 
It just didn’t measure up to the other Great Lakes. 
How this lake made it into this exclusive club has to do with some language quietly added to an uncontroversial bill in Congress. 
Curious City partners with the Points North podcast from Interlochen Public Radio to dive into the story behind Lake Champlain’s short stint as a Great Lake. 
Press play to listen and read the story here. 
Points North is a podcast about the land, water, and inhabitants of the Great Lakes. 
Follow them @pointsnorthpodcast 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 16.3%The Curious City Team: 5.4%WBEZ: 2.0%Confirmation Bias16.3%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 2.4%WBEZ: 0.5%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 17.0%The Curious City Team: 8.0%WBEZ: 2.6%Availability Heuristic17.0%This article: 13.5%The Curious City Team: 6.9%WBEZ: 0.7%Representativeness Heuristic13.5%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.3%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.7%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 28.4%The Curious City Team: 26.0%WBEZ: 4.2%Framing Effect28.4%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.6%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.6%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 2.5%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.9%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 15.6%The Curious City Team: 10.4%WBEZ: 5.2%Negativity Bias15.6%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 1.2%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.7%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.9%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.2%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 2.6%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.0%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 6.4%The Curious City Team: 2.1%WBEZ: 1.0%Recency Bias6.4%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.3%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.2%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.1%Straw Man0.0%This article: 10.6%The Curious City Team: 3.5%WBEZ: 3.1%Appeal to Authority10.6%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.9%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.6%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 3.5%WBEZ: 3.0%Hasty Generalization0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.1%Red Herring0.0%This article: 9.2%The Curious City Team: 3.1%WBEZ: 0.3%Bandwagon9.2%This article: 10.6%The Curious City Team: 3.5%WBEZ: 4.3%Appeal to Emotion10.6%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.4%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 16.3%The Curious City Team: 5.4%WBEZ: 1.9%Post Hoc (False Cause)16.3%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.0%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.3%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 2.3%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.0%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 23.4%The Curious City Team: 7.8%WBEZ: 1.0%Ambiguity (Equivocation)23.4%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 5.0%The Curious City Team: 1.7%WBEZ: 0.1%Middle Ground5.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.0%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.1%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 16.3%The Curious City Team: 5.4%WBEZ: 0.8%Unattributed Quote16.3%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.7%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 23.4%The Curious City Team: 14.9%WBEZ: 3.6%Biased Writer Voice23.4%This article: 16.3%The Curious City Team: 5.4%WBEZ: 1.4%Indoctrination16.3%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.4%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Curious City Team: 0.0%WBEZ: 0.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 27.0%The Curious City Team: 11.8%WBEZ: 1.3%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…27.0%

141 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers29%attributed speech100writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 7 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 10 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 5 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 10 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 23 words • 100.0% coverageCurious City • 26 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 9 words • 100.0% coveragePoints North • 15 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 3 words • 100.0% coverage
Selected voice

Curious City

100%flagged-word coverage
26 attributed words63% of attributed speech100% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Attempt to Sell a Product +88.0 ptsWriter: 12.0%Curious City: 100.0%100.0%Biased Writer Voice-33.0 ptsWriter: 33.0%Curious City: 0.0%0.0%Unattributed Quote-23.0 ptsWriter: 23.0%Curious City: 0.0%0.0%Indoctrination-23.0 ptsWriter: 23.0%Curious City: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.