Fact, Opinion and Evidence
How to tell a verifiable claim from a judgement in English writing — and spot the evidence that is supposed to support it.
A text can be entirely true and still be mostly opinion. At B2 the skill is not "is this correct?" but "what kind of statement is this, and what is holding it up?"
Three kinds of sentence
Fact — can be checked against the world:
The scheme cost £4.2 million.
Opinion — a judgement, cannot be checked, only agreed with:
The scheme was a waste of money.
Reasoned claim — an opinion with evidence attached:
The scheme cost £4.2 million and served 300 people, making it poor value compared with the £600,000 alternative.
The third is what good argumentative writing is made of. Exams ask you to tell them apart constantly.
Words that mark an opinion
Evaluative adjectives and adverbs are the giveaway: excellent, disastrous, unacceptable, remarkable, worrying, sadly, fortunately, surprisingly.
Unfortunately, attendance fell by 12%.
The 12% is fact. Unfortunately is the writer telling you how to feel about it.
Words that mark hedged claims
Careful writers rarely state opinions baldly. They hedge:
- may, might, could — possibility
- suggests, indicates, appears to — softer than proves
- arguably, to some extent, in many cases — limits the claim
The data suggest a possible link.
That is two hedges in six words. It is a much weaker statement than the data prove a link — and reading past hedges is one of the most common comprehension mistakes.
Testing the evidence
When a claim has evidence, ask three questions:
- Is it relevant? Sales rose after we changed the logo — did the logo do it, or was it the season?
- Is it representative? Three customers complained — out of how many?
- Where is it from? Research shows… — whose research, and who paid for it?
A worked example
The new timetable has been a success. Punctuality improved by 4%, and passengers tell us they are happier. Critics claim overcrowding has worsened, but this is hard to measure.
Success — opinion. 4% — fact. Passengers tell us — unverifiable and self-reported. Critics claim… hard to measure — an opposing point raised and quietly dismissed rather than answered.
Test yourself
The quiz below asks what kind of statement each sentence is, and how strong it really is.