Page 484 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing
P. 484
unfairly penalizing students who may be absent for legitimate
reasons.
Fact or Opinion?
Opinions are statements that, in an essay, need to be supported by
facts or examples. It is important to be able to distinguish fact from
opinion. Fact can be defined as a statement that is ultimately
provable. In other words, you can look it up in an encyclopedia, you
can observe it for yourself, or you can measure it against some
objective standard.
However, you can expect even facts to be slippery because of
differences in people’s perceptions. Any police officer who has taken
down eyewitness statements can describe the immense differences in
the accounts of people who have all witnessed the same event. Facts
can also be slippery because of the differences in the way people see
the world. Does the sun rise in the east every morning, travel across
the sky, and set in the west? While most of us might say yes, a
scientist or a literal-minded person might remind us that the sun does
not travel at all, but instead remains fixed while the earth moves. In
other words, while facts may be ultimately provable (or disprovable),
they are not indisputable.
Group Exercise 10-1
