COL 240 Writing supporting paragraphs / incorporating sources

When writing your supporting paragraphs, you will present facts and opinions.

A fact is a truth. It has been scientifically proven or it is accepted by everybody or almost everybody.

Eg. A smartphone allows the user to access the Internet.

An opinion is personal and can vary from one person to the next.

Eg. Smartphones are destroying people’s privacy.

Look at the sentences below and decide if they are facts or opinions.

  1. It’s really easy to read on a smartphone screen.
  2. Smartphones are the best invention of the past 40 years.
  3. The majority of smartphone batteries contain lithium.
  4. Recent smartphones have screens which can show images in greater detail.
  5. Smartphones allow users to check e-mail and text messages anywhere.
  6. It is very convenient to have 24-hour access to your messages and the Internet through your smartphone.
  7. Answering your phone at the dinner table is rude and should be avoided.
  8. The number of applications available for Android phones has increased by approximately 30% in the past year.

Using facts and opinions in your support paragraphs.

In your support paragraphs, you sometimes use facts to support your opinion. Quite often, you do this in the following way;

OPINION FACT INTERPRETATION

Copy the following sentences into the box in the correct order.

  • In a recent survey of the under-30s, 65% of those surveyed said that they often used their smartphone for emails and for basic word processing (Wilkinson, 2012).
  • It may be that smartphones are starting to take over from computers for many of our day-to-day needs.
  • This seems to indicate that people are starting to see the smartphone as their main computer, and are only using their laptops for specific tasks such as longer documents or work with spreadsheets.

Look at the following section from a support paragraph and decide which sentence should come next.

Increasingly, we are using smartphones to help us organize our lives. The majority of American under-25s no longer wear a watch, preferring instead to check the time on their phone (Johnstone, 2011). British under-30s are now more likely to use an online calendar, available on their smartphone, than a traditional paper diary, according to a recent survey (Smith, n.d.)

1. 2. 3.

The following sections from an essay on smartphones all have an opinion followed by some facts from sources. Write the next sentence in each case. Interpret the fact to show how it supports the opinion.

However, these wonderful mini-computers in our pockets, which allow us to do so much of our work on the move, may not actually help us to become any more productive. Statistics seem to indicate that there have been only small increases of about 1.5% in our productivity in recent years (Berman, 2013). This compares to annual increase of 3% from 1995 – 2004, when the internet was becoming more popular (Berman, 2013).

It may be that instead of helping us to answer our e-mails and get through our work more efficiently, smartphones actually make us less productive because of the possible distractions they offer. Smartphone users have downloaded the popular game “Angry Birds” over 200 million times (Thompson, 2012).

Smartphones may also be changing our ideas of socially acceptable behaviour. A recent study by a UK university found that 50% of the under-25s believe it is acceptable to text while having dinner and over a quarter of those asked in the study say they would interrupt a face-to-face conversation in order to take a call (“New study covers the dos and don'ts of smartphone etiquette”, 2013).

Secondly, there seems to be a real danger that large numbers of people are now becoming addicted to their smartphones. A recent study in the UK has found that 41% of Britons have feelings of anxiety when separated from their device (Archer, n.d.)

Smartphones may also be taking away our privacy. Police forces in the US can now follow citizens’ movements by tracking their smartphones (Wheeler, 2010). This can be done without permission from a judge (Wheeler 2010).

Possible answers

However, these wonderful mini-computers in our pockets, which allow us to do so much of our work on the move, may not actually help us to become any more productive. Statistics seem to indicate that there have been only small increases of about 1.5% in our productivity in recent years (Berman, 2013). This compares to annual increase of 3% from 1995 – 2004, when the internet was becoming more popular (Berman, 2013).

It may be that instead of helping us to answer our e-mails and get through our work more efficiently, smartphones actually make us less productive because of the possible distractions they offer. Smartphone users have downloaded the popular game “Angry Birds” over 200 million times (Thompson, 2012).

Smartphones may also be changing our ideas of socially acceptable behaviour. A recent study by a UK university found that 50% of the under-25s believe it is acceptable to text while having dinner and over a quarter of those asked in the study say they would interrupt a face-to-face conversation in order to take a call (“New study covers the dos and don'ts of smartphone etiquette”, 2013).

Secondly, there seems to be a real danger that large numbers of people are now becoming addicted to their smartphones. A recent study in the UK has found that 41% of Britons have feelings of anxiety when separated from their device (Archer, n.d.)

Smartphones may also be taking away our privacy. Police forces in the US can now follow citizens’ movements by tracking their smartphones (Wheeler, 2010). This can be done without permission from a judge (Wheeler 2010).