Fact, opinion or Bias?

Copy out the following definitions:

• Fact: a thing that is known or proved to be true. (e.g. World War 1 started in 1914)

• Bias: having an unfair or unbalanced opinion (e.g. Chelsea is the best football team in the world)

• Opinion: a view of judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge (e.g. Spider-Man No Way Home was a very good movie)

Read through the following information below and then complete the questions that follow

When we study the past it is important to know whether a source we are looking at can be trusted. How much we can trust a source is called its reliability. There are many factors that help us to determine whether a source is reliable, and to do this we must understand the difference between fact and opinion, and understand what bias is.

A fact is something that really happened; it is the truth about an event or person. An opinion is someone’s point of view about what has happened.

An example of a fact could be The Ancient Olympic Games were held in 776 BC. This is a fact because historical records show us that it is true.

An example of an opinion could be The Ancient Olympic Games was the best sporting event in history. This is an opinion because it is only a point of view.

Knowing that something is an opinion is important because sometimes sources contain bias. Bias occurs when someone has a prejudice, or is trying to present information that is favourable to one point of view. You may harmlessly do this yourself when describing your favourite sporting team. Sometimes people lie, other times they leave out important facts that might be useful. This happens in a courtroom, or with police witness statements, and it happens with historical witnesses as well.

Knowing when something is biased helps us to work out how reliable a source is. The source may still be useful in telling us about the past, but historians need to know when something is a fact, or an opinion.

TASK 1: Comprehension

Answer the following questions below based off of the information above

1. What is important to know about a source?

2. What word do we use for how much we can trust a source?

3. What is a fact?

4. What is an opinion?

5. Why is knowing something is an opinion important?

6. When does bias occur?

7. Why is it important to know when something is biased?