Fact or Inference
What you will be able to do: Classifying statements as observation, inference, assumption, or value judgment, and splitting sentences that mix them
Before you start
The three statements below all concern the same fictional incident: a broken shop window. They look like a single account. They are three different kinds of claim, and confusing them is how conversations about evidence turn into conversations about loyalty.
Sort each one, then read why.
Every scenario on this page is fictional and was written for this exercise. None of them describes a real organization, person, or event.
Practice
Choose a response for each item, then read why it is stronger or weaker. There is no score, no account, and nothing is sent anywhere. Your answers stay in this browser tab and disappear when you close it.
1. Sort this statement
The store's front window was broken at some point overnight.
Strongest reading
Strongest. The broken window is observable. "Overnight" is an inference from the window being intact at closing and broken at opening, which is reasonable and worth naming as an inference rather than folding into the observation.
Partly right
Close, but it treats the time window as observed. Nobody watched it break. The timing is inferred from two observations at different moments, which is sound reasoning and still reasoning.
Weaker reading
This under-credits the observable part. The damage itself is directly observable, and treating the whole statement as inference loses the distinction that makes the sort useful.
Show the full answer key for this item
What remains uncertain: The reliability of the observation depends on the reliability of the person reporting it and on whether the window was actually checked at closing.
- Observation, with a small inference about timing. Strongest reading
- Strongest. The broken window is observable. "Overnight" is an inference from the window being intact at closing and broken at opening, which is reasonable and worth naming as an inference rather than folding into the observation.
- Pure observation. Partly right
- Close, but it treats the time window as observed. Nobody watched it break. The timing is inferred from two observations at different moments, which is sound reasoning and still reasoning.
- Inference. Weaker reading
- This under-credits the observable part. The damage itself is directly observable, and treating the whole statement as inference loses the distinction that makes the sort useful.
2. Sort this statement
The break-in was clearly targeted, since nothing else on the street was touched.
Strongest reading
Strongest. "Targeted" is a conclusion about intent, drawn from a pattern of damage. It assumes that an opportunistic act would have produced damage at multiple premises, which need not be true. Naming the assumption is what makes the statement arguable.
Partly right
The absence of other damage is indeed observable. The word "targeted" is not. Splitting the sentence into its observed and inferred halves is the exercise.
Weaker reading
No value is being asserted. "Targeted" is a factual claim about intent, and evidence bears on it, unlike a claim about whether the act was wrong.
Show the full answer key for this item
What remains uncertain: Intent is among the hardest things to establish from physical evidence, and single-premises damage is consistent with several explanations, including chance.
- Inference resting on an unstated assumption. Strongest reading
- Strongest. "Targeted" is a conclusion about intent, drawn from a pattern of damage. It assumes that an opportunistic act would have produced damage at multiple premises, which need not be true. Naming the assumption is what makes the statement arguable.
- Observation, because the absence of other damage was observed. Partly right
- The absence of other damage is indeed observable. The word "targeted" is not. Splitting the sentence into its observed and inferred halves is the exercise.
- Value judgment. Weaker reading
- No value is being asserted. "Targeted" is a factual claim about intent, and evidence bears on it, unlike a claim about whether the act was wrong.
3. Sort this statement
The council should pay for security cameras on that street.
Strongest reading
Strongest. "Should" makes it a claim about what is right or worthwhile, which evidence informs but does not settle. It also embeds testable claims: that cameras would reduce incidents, and that the council is the appropriate payer. Separating these lets each be discussed properly.
Partly right
It follows from premises, but the conclusion is normative rather than descriptive. Treating it as an inference invites an argument in which more evidence is offered against a disagreement that is not about evidence.
Weaker reading
Nothing is being reported as observed. This classification would make the sort meaningless.
Show the full answer key for this item
What remains uncertain: People who agree completely on the effectiveness of cameras can still disagree about whether public money should pay for them. That disagreement is legitimate and is not resolved by more data.
- Value judgment, with embedded factual claims. Strongest reading
- Strongest. "Should" makes it a claim about what is right or worthwhile, which evidence informs but does not settle. It also embeds testable claims: that cameras would reduce incidents, and that the council is the appropriate payer. Separating these lets each be discussed properly.
- Inference. Partly right
- It follows from premises, but the conclusion is normative rather than descriptive. Treating it as an inference invites an argument in which more evidence is offered against a disagreement that is not about evidence.
- Observation. Weaker reading
- Nothing is being reported as observed. This classification would make the sort meaningless.
What to take away
- Most sentences mix categories.
- The useful move is not to label the sentence but to split it and label the parts.
- Intent is always inferred.
- Physical evidence can constrain an account of intent. It cannot observe one.
- A 'should' ends the evidential part of the argument.
- Once a statement is normative, more data does not settle it, and continuing to supply data is a way of avoiding the actual disagreement.
Nothing you select on this page is transmitted anywhere. There is no account, no score, and no record. See the privacy page for details.
Topics covered: Critical Thinking
Related material
Think Lab
Analyze a Headline
Practice reading three headlines for what they establish, what they imply, and what they leave for the article to prove.
Toolkit resource
Claim Sorting Worksheet: Observation, Inference, Judgment
A four-column worksheet for taking apart a paragraph of argument and locating where a disagreement actually sits.
Toolkit resource
A Community Discussion Guide for Evaluating Claims
A ninety-minute facilitation guide for running a claim-evaluation discussion in a library, congregation, or community group without it becoming an argument.
How this page is produced
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