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Facts vs. Opinions vs. Bias

It can be difficult and confusing to distinguish between fact, opinion, and bias. Writers will often wrap facts up amongst opinions that make it hard to pull out the truth. To help differentiate, it is important to be able to define each one.

Fact: A fact is something that is an objective proof. It can be shown to be true through evidence.

Example: Beyonce was born on September 4th, 1981.

Opinion: An opinion is something that cannot be proven. IT typically is based on emotion, and contains very descriptive language such as large, best, worst, greatest, etc.It also tends to have an exaggerated effect to it.

Example: Beyonce is the greatest singer of all time.

Bias: A bias is prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

Example: Hillary Clinton was the worst candidate for President because she was a woman.

Fact-Checking Websites

Fact Check
FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. They are a nonprofit and nonpartisan group that works to monitor the factual accuracy of anything political.
Politifact
PolitiFact is a nonpartisan fact-checking website to sort out the truth in American politics. It is a project of the Tampa Bay Times, a publishing company based in St. Petersburg, Fla. The Tampa Bay Times is owned by The Poynter Institute, a nonprofit school for journalists.
Snopes
A great resource that began in 1995 with the founder working to debunk urban legends. It is now one of the leading resources on the World Wide Web for exposing what parts of viral stories are true and what parts are false.

Biases

Blue Feed, Red Feed
See a comparison of how liberal and conservative news report on the same topic.
Project Implicit
Take one of the multiple subject oriented quizzes put together by Harvard University to determine your own biases.

Does It Pass the CRAAP Test?

CRAAP Test
The CRAAP Test is a list of questions to help you evaluate the information you find. Different criteria will be more or less important depending on your situation or need.

Test Your Skills

Factitious
Can you spot the Fake News? Test Your Skills in this online game!
Quiz: Are These Hurricane Sandy Photos Real or Fake?
Test your skills in this quiz!

Leadership LLC

Facts vs. Opinions vs. Bias

Fact-Checking Websites

Biases

Does It Pass the CRAAP Test?

Test Your Skills

Here’s How Fake News Works (and How the Internet Can Stop It)

Articles