Opinion

Academic Writing I: Fundamentals Week 2: Research Opinion

Estimated Time: 20 minutes

At the end of the lesson, you will be understand the difference between fact and opinion, and how to use facts as support for your thesis.

How Can I Support My Ideas in Academic Writing?

In the following video, you’ll learn the difference between a fact and an opinion. Opinions are the starting point of an academic essay, but you must use factual evidence to support your opinion, to create an argument in your essay. However, that doesn’t actually make the opinion a fact.

An opinion is a subjective claim that states a judgment or point of view, not objective truth.
A fact is an objective statement of truth or information.
An argument is an idea or opinion that you support with facts. If you want to convince someone your argument is valid, you need evidence.

Here are some examples of opinions in academic writing:

Eating vegetables can have a lot of health benefits.
People spend too much time on their smartphones.
Driving a motorbike is more convenient than driving a car in Phnom Penh.

The Problem with Opinions

Everybody has opinions about a lot of things. Opinions are usually formed by experience, observation, and popular ideas in the news and social media. Are they always true and accurate?WIn order to be able to present and support an opinion in academic writing, it has to be backed with evidence. An opinion without evidence is good for casual conversations but isn’t acceptable in academic writing. Evidence is any kind of credible resource online and offline that helps you back your opinions with facts. The process of providing evidence to support an opinion is what we call research. Not all types of resources can be used as evidence in academic writing.

An updated version of the slides seen in the video can be found here.

What kinds of resources are not acceptable to support opinions?

As was mentioned in the video, not all of the information is reliable. Avoid using the following sources of information to support your ideas in academic writing:

Your friends, family, and any kind of information you pick up in your daily life. For example, you may believe that dogs make better pets than cats because your family had dogs as pets.
Social media. Nothing that appears on these sites is considered credible evidence. It doesn’t matter how truthful it may sound.
Personal experiences and examples (unless supported by an acceptable source).
Wikipedia. Although Wikipedia is great to help you clarify terms and topics, the information isn’t always reliable.
Articles without an author As we discussed in the previous lesson articles without an author do not provide reliable facts as they could have been written by anyone! Another reason that makes them unsuitable is that, as we will see in our next lesson, they can’t be cited or referenced.

What kind of sources are acceptable to support my thesis?

Official web pages directly related to your topic. Official webpages are webpages of official organizations like governments, universities, or social services.
Statistics are a good way to present information without having to write a lot of words. They save time and space and leave a lasting impression on the reader. Remember: Not all statistics you see are valid. You always have to check the source. The article has to mention the study they appear in and the name of the author of the study.
Academic studies and articles are the most reliable source of information. Only use articles you understand, however.
Internet articles with an author. Always make sure that the name of the author appears either at the top or bottom of the page. In order to take your research a step further, it is good advice to additionally look up information about the author of the article.
Books and Textbooks related to your topic are reliable sources.