While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, facts are independent of anyone’s beliefs, feelings, or perspectives. When writing persuasively, try to avoid opinion statements as these can weaken your argument, particularly when it comes to thesis statements.
The biggest problem with opinion statements is that they are unfalsifiable and therefore can’t be debated. As The Dude so eloquently put it, “Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.”
People don’t talk about believing that 2+2=4 or being of the opinion that gravitational force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between two objects, because these statements are objectively falsifiable.
Even seemingly subjective claims can often be supported by evidence. One person may be of the opinion that a particular outfit is aesthetically pleasing while another person might believe that it is the most offensive thing to happen to the world of fashion since the days of disco. At first, this might seem like an unarguable and purely subjective issue, but it would be possible to qualify the claim by conducting a survey and then stating (factually) the view of the majority of people.
Robert Heinlein may have put it best when he said:
“What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what ‘the stars foretell,’ avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable ‘verdict of history’ – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!”
