Part 4 Reading Critically Chapter 8 Fact and Opinion

In order to be a critical reader, you must be able to tell the difference between fact and opinion. Written material sometimes presents opinions as though they were facts. You need to be able to know when this is happening.

A fact is a statement whose truth or falsity can be proved in some objective way. Statements of fact can be verified or disproved by records, tests, historical or scientific documents, or personal experience. A statement of fact offers neither judgment nor evaluation. Factual statements present information without interpreting it. Statements of fact often rely on concrete and measurable words.

An opinion expresses a personal preference or value judgment. Statements of opinion cannot be proved to be true or false.   Statements of future events or probabilities are often opinions no matter how reasonable or likely they seem. Statements of fact can sometimes be false.

Evaluating Health News   1. Is the report based on research or on an anecdote? 2. What is the source of the information? 3. How big was the study? 4. Who were the participants involved in the study? 5. What kind of study was it? The best interventional studies share the following characteristics: • Controlled. A group of people who receive the treatment is compared with a matched group who do not receive the treatment. • Randomized. The treatment and control groups are selected randomly. • Double-blind. Researchers and participants are unaware of who is receiving the treatment. • Multicenter. The experiment is performed at more than one institution. 6. What do statistics really say? 7. Is new health advice being offered?.

Chapter 8 Test Taking Tip— Improving Your Performance on Essay Tests   Before the test There is no substitute for simply knowing the course material well. But that can be a big task, and realistically some parts of the material are probably more important, and more likely to appear on an essay test, than others.

Try to think of questions that might appear on the test. Ask yourself what questions you think your teacher might ask. Look at your returned test papers. You can learn a lot by reading the instructor’s comments and correcting the answers. Review your class notes and any handouts to see what the teacher emphasized in the course. What topics did the teacher spend the most time on? What topics did the teacher seem to care the most about?

Keep in mind that an essay question may ask for information on a specific topic or it may be directed at a general understanding of the course material. You need to prepare yourself for both kinds of questions.

General or “big picture” essay questions often deal with relationships among topics or concepts. A good way to prepare for these questions is to make an outline or map of the course material. Look at your class notes, any handouts, and your textbook, and organize this material into an outline. If your teacher has closely followed a textbook, the book’s table of contents should give you a good start on making your outline.

Once you have come up with a list of possible questions, use some of your study time to prepare answers to these questions. You may even want to practice writing out answers.