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Critical Reading Skills - Fact vs. Opinion

This document discusses skills for critical reading, including distinguishing facts from opinions. Facts can be proven true through evidence, while opinions express judgments and cannot be proven objectively. Common logical fallacies to watch out for include personal attacks, circular reasoning, oversimplification through false comparisons, and presenting only two options when more exist. Critical reading aims to analyze, interpret, and evaluate a text rather than just understand it at a basic level. The reader takes a neutral stance and questions the text's assumptions and arguments.

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135 views10 pages

Critical Reading Skills - Fact vs. Opinion

This document discusses skills for critical reading, including distinguishing facts from opinions. Facts can be proven true through evidence, while opinions express judgments and cannot be proven objectively. Common logical fallacies to watch out for include personal attacks, circular reasoning, oversimplification through false comparisons, and presenting only two options when more exist. Critical reading aims to analyze, interpret, and evaluate a text rather than just understand it at a basic level. The reader takes a neutral stance and questions the text's assumptions and arguments.

Uploaded by

Emma Precious
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Critical Reading Skills:

Fact vs. Opinion


Dr S. Ashikuti
Separating fact from opinion

Fact
Information is factual when it can be proven true
through objective evidence.

Such evidence can be in the form of physical proof


or spoken or written testimony of witnesses.

Example: COVID-19 is a deadly virus that has killed


many people globally.

The above fact can be verified through research


and data.
Separating fact from opinion

Opinion
An opinion is a belief, judgment, or conclusion that
cannot be objectively proven true. As a result, opinions
are open to question.

Example: Boerboels are the best dogs to own.

The statement above expresses a person/people’s


judgements of Boerboels.
Value words and judgement

Very often, value words are use to express opinions. These words
indicate personal judgement.

These words include: ugly, beautiful, sweet, annoying, worse, nice,


bad, worst, best, disgusting etc.

These words express subjective judgements- based on personal


views.

Modal verbs such as should, must, ought to, may etc. also express
personal opinions. They indicate what someone thinks or suggests.
Common Fallacies

Personal
attacks
Ignoring issues
Circular
reasoning
Common
fallacies
Either-or
Oversimplifying
issues
False
comparison
Ignoring issues: personal attacks

Personal attacks
These are attacks aimed at people’s characters
instead of addressing the issue at hand.

This candidate should not be voted for because


he is in debt and likes expensive things.

Don't hire that candidate; his children are very


disrespectful.
Ignoring issues: Circular reasoning

Circular reasoning
This is the act of persistently repeating points instead of giving evidence
of such points.

This school will help the community because the community does not
have a school.

This is a good minister because he is a wonderful person. .

No real reasons are given to support the initial statements in the above
sentences. The second part of the sentence repeats what was said in the
first.
Oversimplifying issues: False comparisons

False comparisons
These are assumptions that are presented as though they
comparable/more alike when they actually are not.

Example: This issue didn’t hurt us that much; it won’t hurt


you either.

If one virus has no vaccine, no other virus can have a


vaccine.
Oversimplifying issues : Either-or

Either-or
This is an assumption that there only two sides to a
situation/question.

This offers only two options when there are more options.
Although in in some cases only two options exist; in others
several options exist.

People who hate our political party don’t like this country.

A company that does not recycle does not care about the
environment.
Reading vs. Critical Reading

Reading Critical Reading


Aim To get a basic grasp of the text To form judgments about how a text works

Activity Absorbing/Understanding Analysing/Interpreting/Evaluating


Focus What a text says What a text does and means
Questions What is the text saying? What How is the text argued?
information can I get out of it? What are the choices made? The patterns that result?
What kinds of reasoning and evidence are used?
What are the underlying assumptions?
What does the text mean?

Direction Agree with the text: nothing is Neutral: questioning text assumptions,
wrong/illogical in the text arguments, interpreting meaning in context

Response Restatement, Summary Description, interpretation, evaluation

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