Have you ever stated an opinion right after saying ‘as a matter of fact’? Even the best of us can end up making this mistake because it becomes hard to differentiate between facts and opinions at times. However, you will have to learn the difference between the two if you are writing the essay. Students who are confused between the 2 have to contact professional essay writers for help because they can’t seem to ail their essay no matter what they do.
Even though the 2 seem pretty similar, facts and opinions are a world apart. The best way to understand this is through examples and their uses in essays. So let’s get into what are facts and opinions in essays and where should they be used.
The Main Differences
Their Meaning:
Facts are reality; something that you can actually prove to be true. On the other hand, opinions are your beliefs about anything at all – it doesn’t have to be right or wrong. For example, we need vaccines to treat diseases and this is a fact, not an opinion. However, many people think vaccines don’t work and are bad for health, which counts as their opinion.
Depends On:
You can only determine facts through scientific observation or research. Meanwhile, opinions depend on your assumptions, expectations, and personal views. As we talked about vaccines above, you can make sure that vaccines treat and prevent diseases through research and experiment. However, many people feel sceptical about their side effects and choose not to get vaccinated because they assume it will affect them badly. Their expectations of the vaccines and their assumptions would count as their opinions.
Confirmation:
You can always confirm facts through different kinds of scientific methods and experiments. However, you can’t verify if an opinion is right or wrong by any objective methods. You will just have to convince to prove your point (or opinion). Want to know if a vaccine would truly work on people and not harm them? You can simply verify it by exposing the virus to the vaccine contents in a lab. Although, if you feel vaccines are a global conspiracy against people, you can only convince people but cannot prove it.
It Shows:
Facts represent something that actually happened or is still taking place. Contrarily, opinions just show someone’s beliefs, viewpoints, and how they see a concept or object. Let’s switch to another example; an apple is good for you because it’s rich in iron. This is a fact because it just shows the reality of an apple’s nutritional value. However, some people don’t eat apples because they prefer junk food, and that is just their opinion.
Ability To Differ
Facts remain the same regardless of the time, wherever you go because they are universal. If they do change, it means they weren’t right in the first place and won’t count. However, opinions vary a lot with time and differences in location as they depend on people and their thinking. For instance, you need oxygen to live and nothing can change that fact, neither time nor place. An opinion would be something like greeting people is a kind gesture. While this is believed in Asian and Eastern countries, many Western countries consider it rude.
Language
You will always find facts written in unbiased language and as they are. In contrast, people always use biased words to express opinions or their points of view. Brown skin cells protect you from the harmful rays of the sun – this is a fact with no biased language. However, you can clearly find bias in language when you hear someone say I like/dislike people with brown skin.
Arguable
You can’t argue with opinions and if you do, it would make you wrong and seem ignorant. However, opinions are always open to debate even if they are widespread and common. Let’s say someone wants to argue whether the earth is flat or not. It would make them seem the opposite of smart because it’s a fact that the earth is not flat. However, you can always argue whether an apple tastes better than fries because those are opinions.
Affects
Facts have the power to influence the world around us because they are our reality. However, opinions cannot affect you unless you personally are sensitive to them and allow them to affect you. The wealth gap exists and it affects people around the world in good and bad ways. This is because it is a fact that defines how we live and survive in this world. However, if someone denies the wealth gap, it won’t affect peoples’ financial condition. The most it can do is offend people and hurt their sentiments because this opinion is insensitive to others’ suffering.
Uses In Essays:
Essays such as discursive, cause and effect, definition, expository and analytical essays are always based on facts. Using facts in these essays help you explore a topic or argument will real evidence. However, analytical essays still depend on your own interpretation but you have to be as objective as possible.
On the other hand, most of the essays are based on opinions and viewpoints. Essays like argumentative, subjective and critical essays require you to research and think about the topic and share your insights.
Finally, some essays lie in the middle of the spectrum because they use a little bit of both or simply neither. For example, narrative essays require telling a story and it can be a completely false scenario. Process essays require you just to explain how to do something and that depends on facts and opinion. Another example is college essays which use facts and opinions as well as storytelling.
Conclusion:
So there you go, these are the main differences between facts and opinion and their use in essays. if you ever struggle to differentiate between the two, you can always think with the help of the examples given above. We hope this blog has cleared your doubts enough to help you write an amazing essay next time. Knowing the difference between opinions and facts and their different uses can help you write essays as good as all other Top Essay Writing out there. Good luck!
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