Lesson 1.1B: Fact Versus Opinion
 Is it a fact or is it an opinion? Knowing how to decipher fact from opinion is critically important when reading non-fiction material. It is sometimes difficult to tell fact from someone's opinion. The blend of fact and opinion can be heard on news reports, read in magazines, and seen on Websites. As we are frequently surrounded by these sources of information, we need to learn how to decipher fact from opinion.
The following definitions and examples will make this distinction clearer:
• Fact: a truth that can be proved by evidence. For example, British Columbia is a province in Canada; Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth.
• Opinion: a personal belief or judgment. For example, there is no place more beautiful than British Columbia; hiking is an enjoyable sport for everyone.
Where's the Fact? Where's th Opinion?
Where would you expect toe find more factual information, in a textbook or in a diary? Where would you expect to find more opinion, on someone's web log or in an automobile owner's manual? Some writing may lend itself to being more factual, like a science textbook, and other writing to being more opinionated, like your friend's diary. We encounter facts and opinions combined in what we read. Think about a newspaper. There are factual news stories about a car accident in one section, and then a movie review in another. Still other articles might give the facts and details about the latest Vancouver Canucks game and then give an opinion about how the team played that night.
A careful reader knows how to separate fact from opinion.
Guided Practice Activity 1.1B1
Instructions: To complete a Guided Practice Activity, click on the above links. These activities are not to be submitted to your teacher. They are designed to help you to make sure you understand the course material that has been presned. Section assignments that are completed at the end of each section are to be submitted to your teacher for marking.
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Uncovering the Facts and Discovering the Opinions
Facts and opinions are not always going to be identified in listed sentences as you saw in the previous guided practice. Facts and opinions are going to occur in texts we read on a daily basis, whether they’re in a story or on the Internet or in a newspaper. You need to read carefully in these situations in order to separate facts from opinions.
Think about the information you find on the Internet. Are all Websites reliable? Do they contain information you can trust? If you were looking for information for a research report on the Internet, could you trust everything you read on a given website? How would you test the reliability of this information? The same questions could also be asked about information in a newspaper or magazine.
Perhaps something to keep in mind is not to trust everything you read without first deciding if it's fact or opinion. As you progress through this part of the module, you will be given strategies and opportunities to practise uncovering the facts and discovering the opinion.
Look at the following advertisement and see if you can spot the opinions.
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Guided Practice Activity 1.1B2
Instructions: To complete a Guided Practice Activity, click on the above links. These activities are not to be submitted to your teacher. They are designed to help you to make sure you understand the course material that has been presned. Section assignments that are completed at the end of each section are to be submitted to your teacher for marking.
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Summary
Completing this lesson has helped you to:
- understand the difference between fact and opinion
- use strategies to identify facts and opinions
- make reasoned judgments about written text
- compare ideas and information in written text
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