Fact vs. Opinion

Making logical conclusions and making good decisions is partly related to having good information. Writers of expository writing usually support their statements or arguments by including facts and details. Advertisers often combine facts and opinions to encourage people to reach a specific conclusion about their projects. Beware sometimes the facts and the details a writer offers are unreliable. It is up to you, as the reader, to evaluate the information that a writer offers in support of a statement or an argument.

What are facts and opinions?

Reliable facts are provable. Generally, they come from reliable sources, people who are knowledgeable and who avoid biased or slanted presentation of the facts. Facts may take the form of statements, statistics, examples, photographs, and more. Writers create believable, reliable statements or arguments by including many reliable facts from a variety of reliable sources.

Example

Liz Huntley, staff writer with “The Antique Appraiser Magazine“, reports that a 1902 five-cent collector‘s coin is worth seven dollars and thirty-two cents today.

Opinions are statements of what a person believes. They are not provable. Sometimes opinions are mistaken as facts. Careful evaluation of statements will allow you to determine whether they are provable. Although, opinions are useful, they should not be used as the basis for making conclusions.

Example

Todd said he figured the coin must be worth at least one hundred dollars by now.