Distinguishing Fact from Opinion and Bias

1.1  Recognizing Fact and Opinion

     Usually, a fact is defined as something that can be proved, that actually exists, or that everyone agrees is true. However, facts can be changed in future time. While, an opinion usually defined as someone’s belief or judgment about someone or something. But there is a difference between belief and judgment. For instance, when you say like or dislike something, you are expressing an opinion based on your bias or taste preference.

     When we express our judgment about something we must not take our opinion as truth unless we have evidence to back us up. Even then, the evidence might be faulty or based on biased preference.

1.2  Reader and Author Bias

     To read critically requires good reasoning on your part, or you are likely to find yourself accepting opinions and biases of others and thinking they are your own ideas. Many of us, without knowing it, are slaves to other people’s ideas. Learning to read critically help us to reason and think for ourselves.

     We do not read or think critically when:

·         We draw hasty conclusions or poor inferences

·         We oversimplify an issue, or we willingly accept what we read and hear without checking the source or thinking about an author’s opinion.

·         We resist someone else’s ideas only because they are different from ours and for no other reason.

·         We try to place everything into a neat category or stereotype, when we want quick, “pat” answer to everything, sometimes there are no ready answer.

     To read critically, we also need to be aware of our own bias or prejudice as well as the author’s. To be biased or prejudiced is to have a closed mind about something or someone. We can be so biased about something that we do not allow ourselves to reason and think for ourselves.

1.3  Examining Your Biases

     Many of our biases are not based on fact or reasoned judgment but on opinions handed down to us by parents, teachers, and friends. Unfortunately, we don’t always take time to examine the source of our biases, and many of us carry unhealthy opinions and prejudices because of it.

     Most of us carry false beliefs of some type based on our biases. Why, for instance, do we hold the opinion we do about abortion? Are we just parroting the opinions and beliefs of others we respect, or have we really examine the issue’s many facets? What would it take for us to change our opinion? Is our opinion based on a biased belief or on examined judgment?

1.4  Biased and Emotional Language

     As you have seen by now, words not only have various meanings depending on context, but they also can create feelings and imply a sense of values. Some words help us to stereotype people, places, and ideas: American way, un-American, punk, playboy, communist, politician, yuppie, idealist, bum, sexy, handsome, and so forth. Such words give us a kind of visual image or idea we associate with the words; yet they do not really have the same meaning for all of us.

     Good writers and speakers are aware that their choice of words can influence the way we respond and see things. Advertisers, journalist, and politicians, for instance, consider every word they use to sway us to their way of thinking. If we are not careful, we end up following their line of thought without having thought for ourselves.