JUST THE FACTS OR JUST MY OPINION - Scott Kirchner



JUST THE FACTS OR JUST MY OPINION?

Directions: The following excerpts come from articles in “well-respected” publications. Look at the sample statements, all of which might serve as supporting material in a presentation. Indicate whether the samples represent facts (historical or observable facts/confirmable statistics) or opinions (inferences and judgments).

|ARE THEY FACTS OR OPINIONS? |

|Fact |Opinion |Supporting Material |

| |Business-Higher Education Forum. Spanning the Chasm: A Blueprint for Action (Washington, D.C.: American|

|SOURCE |Council on Education and the National Alliance of Business, September 1999). |

|Fact |Opinion |1. The Business-Higher Education Forum’s 1997 report, Spanning the Chasm, revealed that . . . students |

| | |must now graduate with highly developed cross-functional, flexible skills in leadership, teamwork, |

| | |problem solving, time management, self-management, adaptability, analytical thinking, global |

| | |consciousness, and communications. |

|Fact |Opinion |2. Today . . . the whole of human knowledge doubles every five years. |

|Fact |Opinion |3. American college graduates are entering the workplace ill-equipped to effectively contribute in a |

| | |fast-paced world economy. |

|Fact |Opinion |4. Foreign language courses help students understand world cultures and develop a global consciousness |

| | |and should be required. |

|Fact |Opinion |5. Erie Community College received a $122,240 grant to develop a model credit-bearing apprenticeship |

| | |program. |

| |Scott Turow,* “To Kill or Not to Kill,” The New Yorker, January 6, 2003, pp. 40-47. |

|SOURCE |*In 2000, Turow served on an Illinois commission to recommend reforms of the state’s capital punishment |

| |system. |

|Fact |Opinion |1. Illinois, which has a death penalty, has a higher murder rate than the neighboring state of Michigan,|

| | |which has no capital punishment but roughly the same racial makeup, income levels, and populations |

| | |distribution between cities and rural areas. |

|Fact |Opinion |2. I respect the right of a majority of my fellow-citizens to decide that (capital punishment) ought to |

| | |be imposed on the most horrific crimes. |

|Fact |Opinion |3. The justice that survivors (family members of murder victims) seek is the one embedded in the concept|

| | |of restitution: The criminal ought not to end up better off than his victim. |

|Fact |Opinion |4. Capital punishment for slaying a woman is imposed at three and a half times the rate for murdering a |

| | |man. |

|Fact |Opinion |5. Sometimes a crime is so horrible that killing its perpetrator is the only just response. |

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