Why does the writer use facts and opinions

A relevant, well-explained fact is powerful. It makes an argument more substantial, more authoritative, more persuasive. At least, I know what I was thinking every time I wanted students to find facts to help support their opinion: I was thinking how "research" is a whole ball of wax itself.

I couldn't just tell my students, "Hey, go find some facts," and expect good, reliable results. So I had to pick and choose when we had the time to do the research. While good research skills are clearly important, and there were times when putting the time into developing those skills was worthwhile, often I found myself wanting to focus our energy on the writing. I thought, if I could already have a supply of relevant facts for our writing topic, we could really zoom in on how to use the facts to write powerful, well-supported opinions.

The research is already done for an engaging issue, from which a careful selection of facts has been sifted out, so teachers can focus their writing instruction on the writing, not always the fact-finding. I recently used my Fact-Based Opinion Writing activity that deals with the issue of deforestation. The focus question for this activity is: Is deforestation an issue kids should worry about? With Earth Day approaching, it was the perfect topic to dig into.

To become a skilled, critical reader a student must develop the ability to quickly evaluate a text for fact and opinion. To achieve this, they must practice distinguishing between fact and opinion to a point where it becomes a subconscious mechanism.

The activities below will afford your students these necessary opportunities. They can also easily be adapted to a range of ages and abilities through careful selection of the reading material. Not only does this simple activity help students hone their fact and opinion detecting abilities, it also serves as a great warm-up research activity when beginning a new topic in class. When starting a new topic, whether on a historical period, a literary figure, or a species of animal, set students the task of listing ten facts and opinions from their background reading and research on their new topic.

Students must then form and list ten opinions on the topic based on reflection on this initial reading and research. It may also be a useful exercise for students to look back over their opinions at the end of the topic. Have they changed their opinion in any areas of the topic?

Why did they change, or maintain, their opinion? This can work as a great review activity to wrap things up. Newspaper editorials can be a superb resource for students to practice recognizing facts and opinions. First, give students copies of a newspaper editorial. Then, working in pairs, have students go through the editorial identifying the facts by underlining them and the opinions by highlighting.

Remind them to look for the signal words we covered earlier to help identify facts and opinions. When they have finished, students can then compare their answers and discuss the reasons for the decisions they made. This will help to identify any areas of confusion within the class; providing you with useful data to inform your future planning on this topic. If you are looking for a broad range of engaging tasks to teach students about fact and opinion you have found it.

This activity can initially be undertaken using statements compiled on a worksheet. Later, students can work through passages of text, or even through the textbook itself directly. Students simply work through a series of statements marking either F or O beside each to identify that statement as a F act or an O pinion. This activity is an effective study preparation exercise as it helps students to filter factual content from opinion. It also makes it easier for students to work out the underlying purpose of a text, whether it is designed to inform, persuade, or entertain.

Students will soon begin to recognize that passages of text that contain more facts than opinions are most likely intended to inform, while a text that is more opinion-based will most likely be intended to persuade or entertain. Organize students into reasonable-sized groups of four or five students.

Course content Course content. Everyday English 2 Start this free course now. Free course Everyday English 2. Activity 15 What is fact and what is opinion?

Timing: Allow about 5 minutes. To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register. Interactive feature not available in single page view see it in standard view. Yours might not be exactly the same but should be similar. Fact : Something that is true and can be proved.

It may or may not be backed up by facts. Activity 16 Recognising fact and opinion 1 Timing: Allow about 10 minutes. Article 1 Figure 8 Article 1.

Long description. Article 2 Figure 9 Article 2. Which article is the most objective? Article 1. Article 2. Which contains more facts? Which article contains more opinions?

Discussion Article 1 is more sensationalist than Article 2 and probably appeared in a popular newspaper. Activity 17 Recognising fact and opinion 2 Timing: Allow about 10 minutes. Active content not displayed. This content requires JavaScript to be enabled.

Then they ought to be encouraged to take responsibility for what happens thereafter, including taking steps to right the wrong. Yet this rarely happens; indeed, the justice process discourages responsibility. Thus neither victim nor offender is offered the kind of opportunities that might aid healing and resolution for both.

Justice identifies needs and obligations so that things can be made right through a process which encourages dialogue and involves both victims and offenders. A restorative approach to justice would understand that the essence of crime is a violation of people and of harmonious relations between them.

What should they get? What can be done to make things right, and whose responsibility is it? Restorative justice would aim to be personal. Insofar as possible, it would seek to empower victims and offenders to be involved in their own cases and, in the process, to learn something about one another.

Understanding of one another, acceptance of responsibility, healing of injuries, and empowerment of participants would be important goals. Is restorative approach practical? Can it work? The experience of the VORP suggests that while there are limitations and pitfalls, restoration and reconciliation can happen, even in some tough cases.

Moreover, our own history points in this direction. Through most of western history, most crimes were understood to be harms done to people by other people. Such wrongs created obligations to make right, and the normal process was to negotiate some sort of restitution agreement. Only in the past several centuries did our present retributive understanding displace this more reparative approach.

Adapted from: Zehr, H. Justice: Retribution or Restoration? Retribution is perhaps the most intuitive—and the most questionable—aim of punishment in the criminal law.

Quite contrary to the idea of rehabilitation and distinct from the utilitarian purposes of restraint and deterrence, the purpose of retribution is actively to injure criminal offenders, ideally in proportion with their injuries to society, and so expiate them of guilt. The impulse to do harm to someone who does harm to you is older than human society, older than the human race itself go to the zoo and watch the monkey cage for a demonstration.

One of the hallmarks of civilization is to relinquish the personal right to act on this impulse, and transfer responsibility for retribution to some governing body that acts, presumably, on behalf of society entire. Moral feelings and convictions are considered, even by the criminal law, to be some of the most powerful and binding expressions of our humanity.

This is almost certainly true of the majority of victims, and their loved ones, for whom equanimity becomes more and more difficult depending on the severity of the crime.

What rape victim does not wish to see her attacker suffer? What parent does not hate the one who killed their child? The outrage that would result from leaving these passions for revenge unsatisfied might be seen as a dramatic failure of the entire criminal justice system. And, until the moral certainty of a majority of society points towards compassion rather than revenge, this is the form the criminal law must take.

Adapted from: The Lectric Law Library. Briefly describe one or two topics on which you may want to base your persuasive essay. Why is this a good topic? What types of challenges do you think you may face in developing ideas on this topic? When writing your journals, you should focus on freewriting—writing without overly considering formal writing structures—but remember that it will be read by the instructor, who needs to be able to understand your ideas.

Your instructor will be able to see if you have completed this entry by the end of the week but not read all of the journals until week Skip to content Main Body. Learning Objectives Determine the purpose of persuasion in writing. Learning Objectives Determine the structure of persuasion in writing Apply a formula for a classic persuasive argument. Learning Objectives Explain the importance and benefits of acknowledging opposing ideas Identify the importance of cautious use of tone in a persuasive essay Identify bias in writing Assess various rhetorical devices, including the use of I Distinguish between fact and opinion Understand the importance of visuals to strengthen arguments.

Key Takeaways The purpose of persuasion in writing is to convince or move readers toward a certain point of view, or opinion. To argue, in writing, is to advance knowledge and ideas in a positive way. A thesis that expresses the opinion of the writer in more specific terms is better than one that is vague. It is essential that you address counterarguments and do so respectfully.

It is helpful to establish the limits of your argument and what you are trying to accomplish through a concession statement. To persuade a skeptical audience, you need to use a wide range of evidence. Scientific studies, opinions from experts, historical precedent, statistics, personal anecdotes, and current events are all types of evidence that you might use in explaining your point. Word choice and writing style should be appropriate for both your subject and your audience. You should let your reader know your bias, but do not let that bias blind you to the primary components of good argumentation: sound, thoughtful evidence and respectfully and reasonably addressing opposing ideas.

You should be mindful of the use of I in your writing because it can make your argument sound more biased than it needs to. Facts are statements that can be proven using objective data.

Opinions are personal views, or judgments, that cannot be proven.