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What Is Truth? Essay Example

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The ideal of truth is relevant to the individual. Truth is based on a number of factors that are usually derived from absolute knowledge. However, when finding the relationship between knowledge and truth, one questions their own competence and confidence in establishing what is actually true. There are several debates among philosophers and research that try to derive the nature of truth. Defining the nature of truth is routed in technical analysis, a morass of arcane jargon, subtle distinctions from competing theories, and precise definition. Rene Desecrates famously wrote, “I am therefore I exist.” In stating this he holds that only truth that is certain is what the individuals own cognition of their existence. The principle question among the long time debate is to answer, what is truth? This questions have plagued the minds of philosophers since the time of Plato and Socrates. It has been a never ending debate trying to draw the relationship of knowledge, truth, and understanding what is relevant to their own assessment. From the readings of Martin Luther, Descartes, and others, this paper will explore the philosophical questions of knowledge and truth. Drawing on these reasons to come to a consensus on what can be the individual be assured of what they believe is the absolute truth, and what prevents individuals from the truth.

The notion of truth is developed through the ideas, belief, and opinion of what is and what is not. Truth is an object of relativism of an individual’s ideas, the agreement and disagreement of reality. In understanding truth, there are three principal interpretations that are used, truth as absolute, truth as relative, and truth as an unattainable reality. According to definition, absolute truth is, “is defined as inflexible reality: fixed, invariable, unalterable facts.” (All About Philosophy, n.d) Essentially it is a truth understood universally that cannot be altered. Plato was a staunch believer in this interpretation, as the truth found on earth was a shadow of the truth that existed within the universe. This is the hardest interpretation of truth because there can be no indefinite argument with those that try to negate the existence of absolute truth. In arguing against the interpretation, the arguer themselves tries to search for validation in their statement that absolute truth doesn’t exist. In a matter of contradiction in understanding what is truth is to establish that truth exists. In a better interpretation seeing the truth as relative is explaining that facts and realities vary dependent on their circumstances.

Relativism is in the matter of where no objectivity exists and is subjective which the validity of truth doesn’t exist. According to philosophy, “Relativism is not a single doctrine but a family of views whose common theme is that some central aspect of experience, thought, evaluation, or even reality is somehow relative to something else.” (Swoyer, 2014) The last interpretation of truth is that truth is an unattainable reality where no truth exists. Truth is a universal fact in which corresponds with evidence, reality, and experience. Since an individual’s reality and experience constantly change, it is impossible to reach an absolute truth. This interpretation is relative to one’s own knowledge because it is present in their person’s mind. Using this interpretation many philosophers have carved out several theories of truth.

The pragmatic approach to defining truth is by seeing that truth is the objects and ideas that the individual can validate, assimilate, verify, and corroborate. In understanding what is not true it is essentially what the individual cannot. In establishing the absolute truth, it is what happens and becomes true events that are verified through a process of verification.  In the view of this paper, is that truth is dependent on the individual’s fact and reality, as Aristotle stated, “to say of what is that is it not, or what is not that is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and what is not that it is not, is true.” As confusing as the statement may be to some, the concept of truth is based on a person’s confidence in their own reality as the basis of truth. Not only is the general consensus now, but in also philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas in the 9 th century in which, truth is the equation of things and intellect, more importantly the basis of truth as true is up to the individuals’ knowledge.

In Rene Descartes search for truth, he begins with the method of doubt. Written Descartes, Meditation , “I seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive, very clearly and distinctly is true.” (Descartes, 7.35) Descartes add to the questions of what is truth is by the confidence and certainty in knowing that what is true is from the natural experiences and own personal truths. The individuals’ definition of truth is what the person understands in life through logic and reason. The individual establishes their idea of reality from their senses, what they see, and true perceptions.  Descartes wrote in his, Letter to Mersenne , any doubts about truth is perpetuated by the notion that no one can be ignorant of truth because it symbolizes the conformity of thought with its object. (Smith, 2014) Drawing from Descartes works we will answer what prevents us from the truth.

In his Method of Doubt from his First Meditation , his purpose was to negate skepticism by doubting the truth of everything including what we know in our minds. The reasons in which people doubt their truth is based on people second guessing their own subsequent beliefs. People claim to know the truth beyond their own realms of justification. People senses and experiences that have been taught are largely provided from prejudices past down. (Descartes, 1639) People are disappointed that what they believe to be true is often not. Descartes stated, “Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses. But occasionally I have found that they have deceived me, and it is unwise to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.” (Descartes, 1639)  From these understandings people then began to doubt what they know to be true because they have reasonable doubt.

In order for a person to understand truth, they must first doubt all things around them in a hypothetical doubt, in order to provide a pretense of what we know is the truth and what we cannot know. By determining our own knowledge of what is true, such as the snow is white, because we know there is no other color in existence, we can have a foundation of unshakeable truths.  While the senses can sometimes present falsehood, it is subjective to suggest that all senses are wrong. In determining using one’s experience to determine truth, it is important to note that everyone’s experience is not the same. The way one person sees an event can be different from someone that sees the same event. Take for example the group of five blind men that felt the tusk of an elephant. One men said it was like a snake, while another suggested that was the neck of a giraffe. Who is to tell who is correct and not? From their own experiences, knowledge, and senses what they believe is to be true. By limiting knowledge on what we know is absolute certain is limiting one’s own perception of reality. This is how doubt is raised, and takes away from the confidence of the individuals’ own knowledge of the truth.

Martin Luther takes on the quest for truth through his thesis, which he wrote to the church. In his appendage for reformation of the Catholic Church, he questioned the authority of the Pope, and what their interpretation of the Bible. In his belief that the word of God is the truth, his stance is that followers of the religion must have faith. In believing what is true and what is not, Luther’s is bound by his idea of faith which correspond with God is the absolute truth.  His justification of God being true is based on the works of God, but more importantly the understanding of truth is by faith alone. His unshakeable foundation of what he believes to be true is routed in his on senses, ideas, and experiences derived from his faith.  Just like knowing what is true and not, Descartes share that while we cannot prove that God doesn’t exist, we can prove that he doesn’t exist. While we can see the things around us does exist, if that has indubitable truth in believing that something exists, it is impossible to prove it isn’t true.

From drawing on the works on how a person can assure that they know is true is using Descartes Method of Doubt to provide a foundation in which what we know is true, and what we know is not. Luther bases his justifications of truth on faith and knowledge, while drawing from logic and reasoning to know what is true. A person is able to draw from their own cognitive knowledge in determining what is true. While knowledge all things is limited, one cannot be limited to suggesting to know the truth of things beyond our resonance. Until proven otherwise, what we say is the truth and everything else is subjective. In the relationship between truth and knowledge, Plato and Charles Peirce had their own separate perceptions. Plato believed that truth is derived from a person’s knowledge, while Pierce believed absolute knowledge to determine absolute truth can never be obtained. Plato’s belief of knowledge and the truth is more correct in providing reasoning that knowledge is based on past experiences, where universal knowledge is a factor in determining truth.

The definition of truth and search for knowledge will continue to be an ongoing debate in which many great philosophers in past, present, and the future will offer philosophies to help guide the debate. While truth will continue to be a matter of one’s own perception, in order to assure that what people believe is the truth is to base their knowledge on their own perceptions.  Based what they know on their own absolute truth in their senses, knowledge, ideas, and beliefs that help form their own realities. Truth is relative to only that individual, as people will experience events differently from other individuals. Descartes said it best that what he knows to be true is based on his own existence. Since he knows that he exists, he knows that the reality around him exists, therefore, his own perception of what is true.

Absolute Truth. (n.d). All About Philosophy . Retrieved from http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/absolute-truth.htm

Bennett, Jonathan. (1990). Truth and Stability. Canadian Journal of Philosophy . Vo. 16. Pg. 75-108. Retrieved from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/jfb/trustab.pdf

Descartes, Rene. (1639). Meditations on First Philosophy . Marxists. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/descartes/1639/meditations.htm

James, William. (1909). The Meaning of Truth . Authorama. Retrieved from http://www.authorama.com/meaning-of-truth-1.html

Luther, Martin. (1520). The Freedom of a Christian . Lutheran Online. Retrieved from https://www.lutheransonline.com/lo/894/FSLO-1328308894-111894.pdf

Smith, Kurt. (2014). Descartes’ Life and Works.   The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/descartes-works

Swoyer, Chris. (2014). Relativism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/relativism

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Truth Essay Guide - Importance of a Truth Today

Any topic expressing a particular view of truth is a good idea as it's an all-time relevant issue. While working on a truth essay, you should combine examples from real-life, widely-accepted definitions, and personal experience to identify this phenomenon as accurately as possible.

If this writing guide, we will explain how to write an essay about truth, explore the matter in terms of prompts and topics, and provide you with some simple examples and tips.

What to Write in Your Truth Essay?

An essay on such a specific topic isn't a separate type of academic paper - it's just writing with a different subject matter. Defining it is not that easy. Our beliefs and perception of truth may vary depending on subjective experience and even life values. That is why one of the simplest strategies would be to come up with a definition of truth. There, you don't have to argue that lying is evil, and we should be honest with each other. You can just provide a trustworthy definition to the phenomena and analyze the way the world translates its importance. The main sources one can use for this paper are reliable websites and dictionaries.

And what if you're writing a philosophy essay? This is what is preferred the most amongst the college students because Philosophy offers more self-expression. Here, every opinion may be considered relevant if you provide the reader with reliable evidence and reasonable statements. But don't forget about the coherence. While being immersed in your thoughts, you may forget about the essay structure and start beating around the bush. To avoid that, pay attention to the structure of your truth essay and don't neglect to outline your assignment. Here is an example of how you can start this writing:

"I think that truth is one's perception of beliefs and decisions. The contrasting points of view predetermine the way each of us understands this phenomenon and answer the question, 'What is true or false?'. There is only one thing that unites all possible definitions of truth and makes people agree on it. That is something believed to be accurate while the opposite is wrong."

So, a philosophy essay on this topic is based more on the author's opinion than an official definition from the dictionary.

Master Absolute Truth Essay Writing

We've gone through two most popular assignment types that the students of different schools frequently deal with. But there are truth essays with other purposes that we must consider. Look through the following list with short explanations.

• Descriptive. Involving touch, smell, hear, sight, taste, try to describe what a true is by these means.
• Narrative. Create a narration in which the frankness will be a core idea.
• Compare-contrast. Analyze why people express the same or completely different opinions on truth.
• Cause-effect (problem-solution). Consider the consequences the world actually is facing because of the lie.
• Argumentative. Formulate an idea related to the topic and provide arguments showing your statement is true and valid.
• Persuasive. Convince the reader that a certain statement is/is not the truth.
• Reflective. The way you reflect on being honest or telling lies.

So, when you are assigned to write an essay on truth, you may focus on the purpose that interests you the most (unless the type is assigned)

10 Great Truth Essay Topics

There are many students thinking that truth essays are all about "grass is green" and "the moon has craters" issues. The joke is it's not true - there are many great ideas to write about. It depends on which aspect you wish to focus as well as the type of academic paper you have to turn in. Here are some questions to consider:

• The issue of true words through the history of mankind.
• Locke's theories of truth correspondence.
• The link between truth and honesty.
• The challenges of being sincere.
• The consequences of pretending to be someone else.
• The idea of honesty in "Dear Evan Hansen."
• Lies VS Truth: A never-never-ending battle.
• Importance of being honest as a postmodern thought.
• Situations in which lies could be justified.
• Lying to dear people. How do they know about you being dishonest?
• The correspondence theory of truth in everyday life.
• How lying can distort our sense of reality.

The range of possible topic options is far wider - just decide a knowledge of what life aspect, science, or course you can successfully apply in your assignment.

Essay Thesis Statement

Each paper of this type should have a frankness-related thesis statement. That is the main idea of the entire writing that should appear in the opening paragraph (introduction). In your conclusion, you may paraphrase the thesis from the first paragraph to remind people of what you plan to talk about. However, we advise you to make conclusions more valuable than that and come up with thought-provoking ideas.

Essay about Honesty

Now, we're going to provide several examples, and the first one is an essay about truth and honesty. These two terms are interrelated, and one can barely exist without another. You may start with something like this:

"How is telling accurate things related to honesty? Honesty is one of the best human traits as it refers to always being open, no matter how bitter or sweet it is. Honesty is what makes human beings brave and robust, and that is why it is one of the most significant traits of candidates to become a president and other ruling authorities. It can lead to certain problems, but people tend to sympathize with those who are honest. It's an integral part of morality, which is the best policy in relationships; it's a significant building block."

Essay about Lies

Is life worth lying? In an essay about lies, you may compare and contrast two opposites. It is okay if you think that telling lies is more beneficial than being frank in specific cases. Share some examples and try to prove your position by providing relevant evidence. Here's an example that can inspire you:

"Is there a single person in the world who has never told a lie throughout life? Excluding Jesus Christ and some other saints from the Bible, everyone has experienced lies from both sides - telling and being told. A completely honest person is a myth. It's not because all people are bad and insincere. In my essay, I'm going to prove that telling lies in some situations may save one's life."

Importance of Being Frank in Our Life

Here, you should provide enough arguments against lying. You may recall some episodes from your favorite movies or just depict real-life examples when telling lies ended up dramatically for both sides. One of the good examples could be Evan Hansen from the "Dear Evan Hansen" musical. There, the socially anxious boy pretended to be the friend of his classmate who committed suicide to make friends with his family. Then, he becomes a hero in the eyes of other people. It all resulted in a big confusion, and the boy was left with nothing.

Truth Essays for Kids

Such an essay for kids should explain what the matter of truth is from a childish perspective. Avoid using difficult, complex terms from philosophy or other science as your target audience won't understand the text. Try to explain what each complex term means.

"In human frankness, there is essential and biggest virtue. Sincerity refers to speaking exactly what you think and feel, and an honest man never tells a lie. We should start telling only the true things since our early days, and here, a lot depends on our parents. You might have had these conversations with them already. Lying to parents is the biggest sin, so practice being honest with them and people around. You may tell lies only in sporadic cases, ensuring that no one will suffer from it, but benefit."

Custom Truth Essay for Students

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As philosophers have told us for centuries, passing the truth of immediate experience into some form that can be handed on to others is difficult. Troubled with levels and degrees, mixed with fact, memory and interpretation, truth in storytelling is rarely black and white. We have come to accept that in fiction, truth emerges at a level higher than fact. Characters and events are imagined, but that doesn’t mean the story isn’t true on a higher or deeper level. Fiction explores the human heart and the emotional truth of human experience. As Picasso said, “Art is the lie that makes us realize the truth.”

That may be, but creative nonfiction writing—though certainly an art—adheres to a slightly different standard. Consider Janet Cooke’s experience. On Sept. 29, 1980, she published an article in The Washington Post about the life of an 8-year-old heroin addict living on the street. “Jimmy’s World” elicited a powerful emotional response from editors and readers. On April 13, 1981, Cooke was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. But she didn’t keep it for very long.

The problem? The story was fabricated. Cooke tried to explain that her sources had hinted at the existence of a boy like Jimmy but she had never met him. Writing the story, she decided to create a character that represented the experience of a child drug addict. The emotional truth of her story was real, but the literal facts of the story were false, and that made all the difference. Cooke was forced to resign her position at the newspaper and return the prize. For the nonfiction writer, manipulating facts and events in order to enhance narrative drive—that is, obfuscating or exaggerating literal or objective truth for dramatic effect—undermines the authority of the writer and destroys the trust of the reader. The writer cannot embellish, condense or otherwise manipulate characters or events in order to make a more compelling story. If readers expect factual accuracy and they don’t get it, they can easily feel betrayed and duped.

Readers of nonfiction (creative or otherwise) enter the text with an understanding that the story is linked directly not to the world of the possible but to the world of lived experience. It often reads like fiction and may involve the use of figurative language and literary techniques commonly found in fiction, and like fiction, it strives for the timeless emotional truths of human experience that bring us closer to a greater understanding of ourselves and each other. But creative nonfiction also explicitly engages the concept of the truth, both emotional and literal, and thus the writer of creative nonfiction is bound, by an implicit and sometimes explicit contract with the reader, to make sure the architecture of his story is based on authentic and reasonably verifiable experience.

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Essay Samples on Truth

Universal truth: the importance of good explanations.

Introduction As a young child, I remember believing in the fictitious story of Santa Claus based purely on imagination. Every Christmas, my friends, and family would celebrate “Santa” coming from the North Pole to bring presents to all children who behaved well. Eighty-four percent of...

Implementing the Four Noble Truths in Everyday Life

Introduction One of the fundamental doctrines of Buddhism set forth by Buddha himself are the Four Noble Truths. These contain the very essence of the Buddha's pragmatic teachings. The Buddha is known to attain enlightenment only after the realization of these four truths during his...

Maintaining Trust: Importance of Telling the Truth

Have you ever wondered if lying is right or wrong? Have you ever lied and been tricked into telling the truth? Most people have been tricked by pretty much everyone. Lying according to research is always wrong. Most people feel guilty about lying and almost...

• Communication

Evaluation of Truth in Life with Doubt and Skepticism

Skepticism brings us to doubt everything in our lives that we once perceived as true. David Hume, Rene Descartes, and Sextus Empiricus have all made a contribution with their stance on skepticism through their writings Discourse on the method of rightly conducting the reason, and...

Uncovering The True Fiction Behind Ishmael Beah’s Recount of His Life Story

What settles the difference between nonfiction and fiction? The specifics. In a nonfiction novel, the author is recounting on purely true events. However, in a fictional text, the author has a wide range of possibilities and can be very subjective. The specifics can be used...

• A Long Way Gone

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The Effects of Sincerity on Our Lives

Whoever Sows Truth does not always Reap Confidence Whoever usually sows truth, as amazing as it may seem, does not always receive confidence. When we talk about sincerity, we are undoubtedly facing a double-edged sword before which many feel uncomfortable and even threatened, because sometimes...

• Human Behavior

Why Facts Are the Enemy of Truth: Facts and Misrepresented Context

The definition of truth is the quality or state of being true. The word truth is used in everyone’s life, whether it is a mom teaching their kid to always tell the truth, or a kid learning that telling the truth can hurt someone’s feelings....

The Perception of Reality and Truth by People

Truth, the property of sentences, assertions, beliefs, thoughts, or propositions in metaphysics and philosophy are said to agree with the facts or state what is the case in normal discourse. Truth is the object of the belief; logical error is a mistake. Individuals need to...

Understanding the Power of Truth from the Perspective of Philosophy

The word 'truth' originates from the Anglo-Saxon word 'tree' meaning 'believed'. 'Belief' itself is from the word 'glycan', which means 'to esteem dear'. Etymologically, ‘truth' would be something accepted to be of some value, instead of essentially being right. 'Believe' is used in the more...

• Personal Philosophy

Understanding the Power of Truth and why it is so Important for Us

For as long as human beings have been able to think, they’ve had the desire to understand the truths of life. In ‘The Allegory of the Cave’, when referring to these desires Plato states, “God knows whether it is true”. When trying to answer many...

Development of Science in Postmodernistic Era

This “post-truth” phenomenon is essentially an extension of postmodernism. Postmodernism attacks the ideal of truth and embraces indeterminacy. The prevalence of postmodernism is a reaction to the flaws of the modern world since the 18-th century Enlightenment. In the Age of Enlightenment, one of what...

• Postmodernism

A Lie: Social and Philosophical Definiton of Lying

Someone could argue that from an early age, the parents, the school teachers and everyone who is being involved with children, advise them that lying is evil and they should not use it as a practice. However, is it always bad to lie? What if...

• Immanuel Kant

Edmund's Quest for Recognition in Shakespeare's "King Lear"

King Lear, one of William Shakespeare's most celebrated works, is a tragedy that explores the theme of revenge against society. The play follows the story of Edmund, the illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester, who seeks vengeance against those who have wronged him due...

Lying or Withholding the Truth in the Medical Setting

Withholding the truth about a patient’s health, health outcomes, or treatment can be taxing for families and medical providers. Doing so could also be in direct violation of a patient’s autonomy, their right to make rational decisions and choices regarding one’s overall well-being (Vaughn, 2013,...

Best topics on Truth

1. Universal Truth: the Importance of Good Explanations

2. Implementing the Four Noble Truths in Everyday Life

3. Maintaining Trust: Importance of Telling the Truth

4. Evaluation of Truth in Life with Doubt and Skepticism

5. Uncovering The True Fiction Behind Ishmael Beah’s Recount of His Life Story

6. The Effects of Sincerity on Our Lives

7. Why Facts Are the Enemy of Truth: Facts and Misrepresented Context

8. The Perception of Reality and Truth by People

9. Understanding the Power of Truth from the Perspective of Philosophy

10. Understanding the Power of Truth and why it is so Important for Us

11. Development of Science in Postmodernistic Era

12. A Lie: Social and Philosophical Definiton of Lying

13. Edmund’s Quest for Recognition in Shakespeare’s “King Lear”

14. Lying or Withholding the Truth in the Medical Setting

• Euthyphro Dilemma
• Ethics in Everyday Life
• John Stuart Mill
• Michel Foucault
• Allegory of The Cave

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Ai, ethics & human agency, collaboration, information literacy, writing process.

Fake News: An Undergraduate Composition Course

Fake News is a themed undergraduate English composition course on research writing. This course aims to help students develop an understanding and practice of empathetic information literacy —a method for sorting out truths and falsehoods while taking into account both intellect and affect, thoughts and feelings. This annotated syllabus presents assignment instructions, teaching notes, and unit calendars for a sequence of essays designed to give students practice with the moves of this method.

Key Terms: Epistemology , Knowledge , Knowledge Claim , Substantive Discourse , Information Literacy , The CRAAP Test

Course Overview

How the course came about, note on religious content, essay 1: instructions for students, essay 1: notes for teachers, essay 1: calendar, essay 2: instructions for students, essay 2: example paper, essay 2: notes for teachers, essay 2: calendar, essay 3: instructions for students, essay 3: notes for teachers, essay 3: calendar, essay 4: instructions for students, essay 4: notes for teachers, essay 4: calendar.

• In 2014, the Boko Haram terrorist group abducted hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls, but the country’s officials dragged their feet in working to get the children back to their families, dismissing the kidnappings as a “hoax” ( Busari ). 
• In 2016, the United States pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, a move that will exacerbate the suffering caused by climate catastrophe and that was enabled by the widespread belief among folks in the US that climate change is either not urgent or an outright “hoax” itself ( AP-NORC ). 
• In 2019, outbreaks of measles rocketed to “emergency levels” in multiple countries in significant part because a growing number of parents have been taken in by debunked claims supposedly linking vaccines to autism (Benecke and Elizabeth). 
• In February 2020, on the eve of the coronavirus breaking out in the United States, the president called the attention journalists and others were giving to the global pandemic merely a “new hoax” being perpetuated by his political opponents ( Franck ). At the time I am writing this sentence a month later, well over a thousand people in the country had died from the disease ( Fox et al. ), a number likely to appear quaint by the time you read this sentence, given the exponential spread predicted by medical and epidemiological experts.

These few examples illustrate how, as the journalist Stephanie Busari puts it, fake news encountered on the internet and elsewhere can do real harm to people in real life. The term “fake news” covers both false misinformation and false accusations against accurate information. The term gained widespread prominence in the past several years when a prominent politician in the United States slung it repeatedly against journalists and even against journalism itself, at the very same time as he himself was lying with breathtaking frequency and blatancy. That pattern follows the historian Timothy Snyder ’s recipe for “modern authoritarians”:

Step 1: You lie yourself. All the time.  Step 2: You say it’s your opponents and the journalists who lie.  Step 3: Everyone looks around and says, “What is truth? There is no truth.”

In this way, fake news not only undermines specific truths—such as whether windmills cause cancer , where a hurricane is predicted to go , whether masses of people voted illegally —but also the very possibility of truth itself. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say, fake news as a whole—where “alternative facts” are just as good as actual ones, where “what you’re seeing . . . is not what’s happening” , where there is “open hostility” to the very notion of verifying things (Snyder On Tyranny )—undermines the ability for ordinary folks to sort out for ourselves with any degree of reasonable confidence what is and is not credible and accurate among the claims we encounter in our daily lives. 

Strangely, as the philosopher Simon Blackburn observes, the difficulties we face in sorting out truth lead many people not to practice humility about what they do or do not know but rather to feel free to “believe whatever they like with as much force and conviction as they like” ( Truth: A Guide ). This is a dangerous situation for us to be in. Importantly, the danger is not even remotely the domain of one politician, one political party, or even politics itself. The wash of “fake news” can affect any aspect of our lives where accurate information matters.

What can we do? One important response to fake news is what educators, especially English teachers, have long strived to do: we can teach critical thinking, research, and information literacy. More specifically, as Timothy Snyder urges folks, we can teach students to “Believe in Truth” and to “Investigate”:

Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.

These are among the very practices English teachers have long taught. Moreover, as the best pedagogues have always exhorted us, we can teach critical literacy, research, and information literacy not merely as technical skills but as personal dispositions—as ways of being and perceiving in the world. 

Few sites seem better poised for this sort of teaching than undergraduate college writing courses. I designed this course to teach students to recognize, when they encounter claims that may be false or falsely accused of being false, what truth distorting strategies might be at work and to practice truth sorting strategies in response. The course integrates the affective and the intellectual, respecting that the search for truth cannot be relegated to the page, screen, or even our minds but that also plays out in our feelings, bodies, and lives. The course revolves around a holistic research method I call empathetic information literacy , wherein I ask students to pause , ask , care , check , and act .  The “fake news” course consists of a sequence of four units, each of which progresses through daily low-stakes reading and writing assignments and in-class activities to culminate in a larger writing project. 

• The course begins with readings, discussions, and activities exploring ideas about truth, fake news, factchecking, cognitive bias, logical fallacies, and “truth sorting” (or information literacy) strategies. This unit establishes a purpose and direction for the course. At the end of the unit, students write Essay 1: Personal Philosophy of Truth.
• The course proceeds to practicing empathetic information literacy together . This unit leads students through a group research project, with a great deal of support and scaffolding, to help them learn the skills of pausing, asking, caring, checking, and acting. Using this method, students write Essay 2: Are Refugees Fake News?
• After students have practiced the method together as a class, the course arrives at applying empathetic information literacy individually. Students now practice on their own the same skills (pausing, asking, caring, checking, and acting) by undertaking research projects of their own choosing. The unit and the course culminates with Essay 3: Choose-Your-Own “Fake News.”
• The last and briefest unit of the course asks students to write one more short essay, a final reflection on what they’ve learned in the course, how they can apply that in the future, and what related learning they would still like to do.

Pedagogical Background

Like many writing teachers, even with pedagogical training, scholarship, and years of trial and error, I have long struggled to teach the research-focused first-year writing course in a way that I find meaningful and that my students find engaging. It’s the research part that’s the bugbear. Many teachers of such courses ask students to write argumentative essays, which use “research” to marshal evidence in support of a particular claim they would like to put forward. But I tend to find making arguments, at least of this sort, outside of any particular discipline, artificial and facile. I want, rather, to teach students a form of “research” that is authentic and that they can actually use in their everyday lives. In the current era of fake news, the lens of “information literacy” strikes me as the perfect form of critical thinking and research to teach students. However, focusing solely on the technical and intellectual tools of information literacy—whether that means how to use the library databases, how to check the credentials of a writer, how to assess a claim for logical fallacies, etc.—long struck me as insufficient. It was just “too dry,” among other things. 

It was only upon reading Patrick Sullivan’s A New Writing Classroom: Listening, Motivation, and Habits of Mind (2014) and then Ellen C. Carillo’s Teaching Readers in Post-Truth America (2018) that the pieces fell into place for me. Among other things, these scholars stress the importance of affect and of reading in the teaching of writing—principles I had previously found much easier to practice in all of my other courses, which did not require the same kind of “research as the course I’ve been telling you about. But the spark that led to the course design presented on this page was when Carillo argues that we should teach students to read well as part of a response to the era of fake news and that part of teaching students to read well is teaching them to attend to the affective dynamics of reading . This resonated with me deeply because empathy has long been a crucial aspect of my teaching in so many other courses—particularly in my teaching of personal writing, creative writing, and literary reading. For some reason, I had failed to find a place for it in the more “technical” context of teaching source-based academic research. Carillo helped me see that empathy and information literacy need not be separate. In fact, just the opposite. We need what I am calling empathetic information literacy . We need to teach students to use their mind and hearts to seek truth. The course I present here revolves around that insight.

The aim of the fake news themed composition course—informed by a growing bibliography of resources on Fake News —is not to make students impervious to being fooled, nor to give them the tools to always know what is true and what is not. That would not be possible. We, too, get fooled, scholars though we are. Following what I have learned from some of the best scholars of pedagogy, from bell hooks to Patrick Sullivan to Ellen Carillo, the idea is to help students internalize habits of heart and mind that will, over the long term, make it more likely that they will uncover truths in their daily lives. I believe those who pause before jumping to conclusions will get to correct conclusions more often. Those who ask questions will become more thoughtful investigators. Those who care about the human beings affected by this or that issue will be less likely to become obsessed with “proving” their own preconceived ideas over and against others’ well being. Those who factcheck will be more likely to get facts. And those who act on truth will be more likely to make any of this truth seeking matter.

Readers will notice the following materials contain some religious references and assumptions. These emerge from the context in which I designed this course, a predominately white Evangelical university in central Florida. Such a context offers distinctive challenges and opportunities. The key challenge is that some (white) evangelicals appear particularly susceptible to fake news—as illustrated by, say, the strong skepticism about climate science or the strong support for Donald Trump among this demographic. But the key opportunity is that truth nonetheless remains a central religious tenant in Christianity—as numerous Biblical passages attest, such as “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 12:22) and “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). In short, as is the case with many communities, Christianity’s own ideals call many Christians to do better. Those teaching in similar contexts may find the religious references in these materials helpful, while those teaching in contexts where such recourse would not be helpful or appropriate may simply skip or replace those aspects of this material.

Essay 1: Personal Philosophy of Truth

What Is Truth and Why Does It Matter to You?

Write an informal essay 750-1500 words explaining your own personal philosophy of truth. You are welcome to draw from the daily writing tasks you completed in this course as well as from the readings, discussions, and activities we’ve done. Make sure you include the following components. You may simply list out each part, but it would probably be more effective to try to weave them together, make them flow, and have an introduction and conclusion.

• Tell a story related to truth or “fake news.”
• Discuss a scripture passage, a passage from The MLA Guide to Digital Literacy , and at least one other text from this class. (You can discuss these while discussing any of the other items on this list.)
• What is truth and why does it matter to you? What is “fake news” and why do you care?
• When seeking truth, what do you do about the fact that what is true is often hard to determine, complex, not obvious?
• How can only listening to people who are like you or who already agree with you distort truth and what can you do about that?
• Create a list of as many “truth sorting strategies” and “truth distorting strategies” as you can think of. Select a few to discuss in more detail, explaining what they are and how to avoid or practice them.
• If there are other things you want to add, feel free.

Since this is your philosophy, you are not graded on whether you are “right” or “wrong” but whether the work is thoughtful, thorough, and on time.

The “fake news” course begins with a unit intended to prime students for seeking truth by asking them to reflect on what truth is, why it matters, and what practical strategies they may use to sort out information they encounter. The idea is to motivate students to care more about truth, to get them thinking about what truth is, and to give them some key concepts for sorting out distortions. Through homework assignments and in-class activities and discussions, students engage with several practical, accessible texts on truth and on information literacy. 

The primary book for this unit is Ellen C. Carillo’s The MLA Guide to Digital Literacy . (In an earlier version of the course, I’ve used Patricia Roberts-Miller’s more theoretical Demagoguery and Democracy .) I also bring in passages from Timothy Snyder ( a viral clip on modern authoritarians’ assaults on truth from his interview on The Daily Show and some quotations from his book On Tyranny ), an op-ed from the New York Times by psychologists Gordon Pennycook and David Rand (“Why Do People Fall for Fake News?”), a TED Talk by the journalist Stephanie Busari ( “How Fake News Does Real Harm” ), an audio clip from NPR by Shankar Vedantam ( “Facts Aren’t Enough: The Psychology Of False Beliefs” ), and a blog post by Susana Martinez-Conde ( “I Heard It Before, So It Must Be True” ). We also read several stories from the Bible, specifically the stories of the Serpent, Adam, and Eve (Genesis), Jeremiah and Zedekiah (Jeremiah), and Jesus and Pilate (John). I also ask students to provide their own stories related to truth and falseness, which become part of the course discussion. These include stories from their own life, from the lives of folks they have to interview, and from an adapted version of the party game “two truths and a lie.”

For many of these discussions, I put a two column chart on a class whiteboard and ask students to identify all of the things that happen in a given story or that are mentioned in one of expository texts that either help folks find out what’s true or that help folks obscure what’s true. For example, in one of the texts, the story of Maranda Dynda shared on the NPR episode, the students might notice that fear, accepting things too easily, not checking the credibility of sources, and walling herself off from sources that potentially contradict her current views all collude to keep the young mother trapped in misunderstandings about vaccines, while care, asking questions, assessing the credibility of sources, doing research for herself, daring to consider alternatives perspectives, and seeking out more thoroughly vetted information all helped her change her mind to a more accurate understanding. As we consider story after story through the lenses of sorting and distorting , students accumulate an awareness of a range of strategies they should consider practicing and of strategies they should watch out for. We also consider the “truth stakes” in these stories, what’s at stake in knowing the truth in any given situation. Sometimes it’s just the humiliation of being fooled or the gratitude of knowing what’s what. Other times literal life and death are on the line.

In this unit we also draw on a number of digital resources for information literacy. We do activities drawing on sites for fact checking (we look at selected articles from snopes.com, factcheck.org, politifact.com to see what truth sorting strategies they use that make them credible) and sites with information on ways we might trick ourselves (we create stories in which folks fool themselves using the biases and fallacies explained at yourbias.is and yourlogicalfallacyis.com). We also spend time in writing workshops for the essay for the unit, which asks students to write their own “personal philosophy of truth,” a reflection on what truth is, why it matters to them, and what they plan to do, practically speaking, to seek it. 

If all goes well, students will complete this unit with a sharpened awareness of and commitment to truth and with some practical strategies for sorting out distortions. They will also, hopefully, be engaged and excited about the class—from the experience of asking meaningful questions, participating in lively activities with their peers, and having accomplished authentic intellectual work with vivid and interesting materials and stories.

• Welcome & Introduction
• Daily Writing 1: Write at least one page (200 words) on the following: First, quote a scripture passage about truth or falsehood and describe how you think it applies to your life. Then, tell about a time you did not know what was true, what you did about it, and why it matters.
• Daily Writing 2: First, collect and describe stories from two or three different people about a time when they were wrong about something. Then, reflect. What could they have done to have a better chance of knowing the truth? What difference might it have made?
• Play: Bad News getbadnews.com .
• Read: Ellen Carillo, The MLA Guide to Digital Literacy , Chapters 1 “What Is Digital Literacy?” & 2 “Understanding Filters and Algorithms, Bots and Visual Manipulation.”
• Daily Writing 3: First, imagine your friend brags, “I’d never fall for fake news” and you decide to prove him wrong. How could you use techniques from the Bad News game to fool him? Then consider how the beginning of The MLA Guide to Digital Literacy applies or does not apply to your own life. Chapter 1 describes eight principles that guide the book. Which of these is most meaningful to you and why? Chapter 2 describes three or four ways we can be manipulated or misinformed online. Do you think you’ve been affected by any of these? If so, how so? If not, what makes you so sure?
• Read: Cass Sunstein, “The Polarization of Extremes” and Michael P. Lynch, “Fragmented Reasons: Is the Internet Making Us Less Reasonable?” included in The MLA Guide to Digital Literacy .
• Daily Writing 4: Quote a few statements Sunstein and Lynch make and then offer examples from your own life or of the lives of people you know that would either support or challenge what these authors are saying.
• Read: Carillo, Chapter 3 “Understanding Online Searches” and Chapter 4 “Conducting Online Research.”
• Daily Writing 5: How does your usual way of looking for information online compare and contrast with what Carillo describes in these chapters? Is there anything she recommends that you are not already doing that you might incorporate into your own search strategies?
• Read: Carillo, Chapter 5 “Go to the (Primary) Source!” and Chapter 6 “Surveying the Conversation by Reading Laterally.”
• Daily Writing 6: Describe a situation—either real or imaginary—where someone gets duped into believing something that is false because they fail to go to the primary source and because they fail to read “laterally” by finding out what other sources say about a source. Offer some suggestions for how this person might do better in the future.
• Read: Carillo, Chapter 7 “Exploring the Credibility of Sources” and Chapter 8 “Working with Your Source.”
• Daily Writing 7: Write a short, fake article about some topic. Make the article as not-credible as possible, by doing the opposite of all the things that Carillo says credible sources should do.
• Read: Carillo, Chapter 9 “Additional Strategies and Resources” and Chapter 10 “Customizing Your Online Experience.”
• Daily Writing 8: Do you think you will use any of Carillo’s recommendations in these last two chapters in your own life? If so, which ones and why? If not, why not?
• Read: Instructions for Essay 1: Personal Philosophy of Truth. Begin working on writing the essay.
• DUE: Essay 1

Essay 2: Practicing Empathetic Information Literacy Together

Are Refugees Fake News?

In this essay, we will practice Empathetic Information Literacy together, walking through the five moves of this “truth sorting” method as a class to investigate a common claim, to see whether it is true or false or something else. Specifically, as a class, we will consider the claim that those people traveling from Central America and crossing into the United States without permission constitute an “invasion.” This is, of course, a very loaded claim. It matters to get it right. If it is false, we need to know. If it is true, we need to know. If it is complicated, we need to know. So over the course of several weeks, we will practice the method of pausing , asking , caring , checking , and acting . We will work on these moves through daily writings and through class activities. At the end of the process, you will gather all that you have done and shape it into a research essay of at least 1,000 words. This essay needs to be formatted according to MLA and needs to cite at least three credible sources. You may also find it important to cite some not-so-credible sources, as a way to show some of the not-credible views that exist on the topic.

The essay should include the following components, which will apply in a practical way the method of empathetic information literacy.

• Heading. Format this essay according to MLA .
• Title. Inform readers of what you’re talking about and catch their interest. You can use a title and subtitle combination if you like.
• Introduction. Explain what the essay is about and what the parts will be. Present and explain at least one actual example of someone making the claim that you are investigating. You may also announce your conclusion, if you don’t want to wait until later in the essay.
• Pause. In this section, describe what you have done to pause and why you find it important. This might include taking a deep breath or a walk, journaling, praying for humility and discernment, stopping to remind yourself that you don’t have all the answers, or stopping to remind yourself why this topic matters and why you want to get it right. Basically, this section describes how you keep yourself from rushing to conclusions, how you set yourself up to have an open mind and an open heart, how you prepare to follow the truth the best you can wherever it leads.
• Ask. In this section, you will turn the claim being investigated into a genuine question. At the most basic level, this simply involves restating it from “This is so” to “Is this so?” Once you spell the claim out as a question, you might also list all the possible answers you can think of. You might also explain all of the follow up questions that the original question leads to.
• Care. In this section, you will explain what you have done to learn about the human beings, the lives and stories, behind the “facts” or “fake news.” These lives are why it matters to “get it right.” You will share the stories you’ve encountered—from books, documentaries, poems, people you meet in real life—and explain the ways that they inform, ground, and motivate your investigation.
• Check. In this section, you will do the actual direct fact checking and truth sorting. You will answer the following questions: What is the source of the claim? What truth storing strategies are being used to lend credence to the claim? What truth distorting strategies might be at work to watch out for? What are other (perhaps more credible) sources saying? And finally, based on your investigation, what is most likely to be true about the claim? This section is where you will cite credible sources. You will cite the source or sources you are using that make the claim. And you will cite credible sources that support or challenge the claim. The source of the claim might be an opinion stated by anyone—while the credible sources must include actual, professional journalism, scholarship, and/or fact checking conducted by people with professional training in those skills who are practicing appropriate truth sorting strategies and publishing their work in a venue with a reputation for professional integrity.
• Act. Once you have done your best to sort out the truth about this claim, you must act on that truth. In this section, you will describe what your action is. Some possible actions include: directly helping a person who is affected by the topic, donating to an organization that helps people affected by the topic, helping spread accurate awareness and information about the topic, writing to your elected officials to urge them to act with compassion and with accurate information on the topic. Alternatively, if you decide that you cannot determine whether the claim is true, then your action might involve further investigation.
• Works Cited. Follow MLA formatting.

The essay will be graded on the basis of thorough, thoughtful completion of all of the instructions above. It must also be formatted and edited so that it is relatively free of errors. It must cite multiple credible sources. It must practice truth sorting strategies. It should not make any demonstrably inaccurate claims. It should appropriately acknowledge complexities and things that are not known or not certain. Any essays fulfilling these criteria will be considered satisfactorily completed. Any essays needing significant development in one or more of these aspects may be revised and resubmitted.

Orville Coralton Dr. Corrigan English Composition II 25 October 2019

Does Squid Ink Make Octopi Live Longer?

Last summer, on a vacation near the beach, I came across an article on the website OctoHealth Report that claimed that drinking squid ink can extend an octopus’s life by up to five years. Specifically, the page said: “Octopus scientist discovers secret to doubling life! Buy our freshly scared organic squid ink and live up to five years longer!” Well, I’m an octopus and all my family are octopi. So this obviously caught my attention. My grandmother is getting up there in years and I’m not ready to lose her just yet. And, if I’m honest, I wouldn’t mind living a little longer myself. On the other hand, is it too good to be true? In this essay, I explain my journey to check out this claim.

I decided not to rush to a conclusion. It would be easy to just accept it (“great, let’s get some squid ink!”) because I would love to find the secret to long life. It would be just as easy to dismiss it out of hand (“oh, it’s a scam”) because I don’t want to end up looking gullible or poisoning myself or worse. Instead, I wanted to actually find out the truth. So I took a deep breath and went for a long swim by myself and decided I would carefully consider the claim. I also thought about the things that might bias me toward one conclusion or another. One thing I realized was how, having grown up in a tight knit conservative octopus community, I was taught to be wary of other kinds of cephalopods. How could squid ink be good for us if squids aren’t (as my grandmother would say) good at all? But that’s speciesist. So I will make sure to pay careful attention instead of not automatically associating anything squid with “bad.”

After pausing, I turned to ask some questions. First, the claim itself. Was it true? Does drinking squid ink extend an octopus’s life? And that led to all sorts of other questions. Who were the scientists who supposedly discovered this? How was the study conducted and what were their exact results? Where can I find that information (since it wasn’t on the page I read)? Could the opposite even be true, that squid ink is actually bad for octopuses? Come to think of it, who is making money selling the ink? How is it obtained? Are squids harmed in the process?

Before I looked for answers to these questions, I thought I should make sure I was listening to the actual cephalopods whose lives affected by this whole issue. When I was visiting my grandma at Golden Shells Retirement community, I listened to her talk about her aches and pains and about how she feared the end of her life and what she would do if she had a few more years. Knowing and loving her as an octopus made me want to know if this “cure” worked. If it did, I could help her.

When I was talking about this conversation with my friends at school, one of my squid friends, Calli, said I should talk to her grandmother. I hadn’t thought about that before—how this “medicine” might affect squids (this is where I got the question from that I added above). So I went home with Calli after school one day and her grandmother told me all about how octopi had treated squid in the old days, how they made them out to be bad but took advantage of their labor. When I asked about the ink thing, she was clearly hurt by that. She actually just spit. (I mean, I think she did. I couldn’t tell. We’re all underwater.) Calli told me it was probably time to leave and explained that there used to be all sorts of seafloor legends about squid ink vs. octopus ink and how older squids are still very sensitive about it. So seeing Calli’s grandmother so hurt by the very mention of a claim about squid ink helped me realize that if it wasn’t true, then it could just be reinforcing false views about squids.

So at that point, I still didn’t know what to think, but I definitely wanted to get it right.

Finally, it was time to start checking credible sources to see if what I had come across was legit or not. First, I looked into Octo Health Report, the source of the claim itself. I actually could not find much information about it. There were no names of publishers or reporters. The name of the website didn’t come up much in other places. And the article itself made lots of claims about scientific evidence and whatnot but did not cite any of this evidence and did not tell me where I could learn more. So that all sounded fishy.

Then I came across an article in Ocean Times , written by the Wellis B. Owen, who has a degree in journalism from Atlantis U and has covered health and wellness for reputable newspapers for almost four years. In “Aging Octopi Anticipate the Ocean Floor,” Owen interviewed a number of octopi who were four or five years old, reaching the ends of their lives. Some of them shared anxiety about dying, others said they were still focusing on living. Owen then quoted a researcher on age and aging who recommended helping older sea creatures get out and swim and socialize at least twice a week. “When older fish are still really living,” Dr. Cephas Fishbourne said, “they’re not so worried about dying.” Owen also quoted another researcher saying there was a tie between end of life anxiety and gullibility for medical hoaxes. The more death looms, the more fish will believe anything.

Finally, I found a scientific article by B. Loon, J. Flomboxton, and G. Gut—who all have PhDs in marine biology—published last year in Journal of Cephalopod Research , that almost directly addressed the squid ink claim. They did not speak specifically about ink but what they said was close enough. The article was titled, “Medicinal Misinformation about Squid.” The scientists wrote:

Given how widespread misinformation on the supposed medicinal properties of squid and given the dire consequences both for octopi who ingest any part of a squid’s biology instead of pursuing legitimate medical options and even more for those squid who may be harmed in the pursuit of pseudoscience, we felt a responsibility to exhaustively review the research related to the topic. Based on an assessment of 215 articles published in the last ten years, every scientific study we could locate remotely connected to the topic, we can conclude that there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support that idea that squid biology has medicinal benefits for octopi. (390)

This is pretty clear. It’s only one source but it’s a source that looked at many others and the authors are qualified to do so. So, based on all of this, I can only conclude that the claim is false . I cannot believe that squid ink is good for octopi at all. The only places that say so are fishy, apparently in it for the money. Not only that but ideas like this aren’t harmless. They inflame old squid/octopus conflicts, get old octopus’s hopes up on a lie, and spread false rumors about squids.

Having determined the claim about squid ink was false, I decided to do something about it. My first thought was to just tell everyone it was false. But then I thought I should do something more. I realized that part of what allowed the lie to float around was old prejudices about squid that some octopi still harbor. So I donated ten sand dollars to Octo-Squid Alliance to help address that. But then I realized that another factor was the isolation and fear of death that aging cephalopods sometimes face. So I started Sundays Under the Sea. I gave it a name as a joke. Really it’s just me and some of my friends taking our grandparents for a swim and a snack on Sunday afternoons. The exercise and the chance to get to interact with people—including octopi and squids interacting with each other, since my friend group includes a diversity of species—will help allay fears and stereotypes as well.

Works Cited

“Live Double.” Octo Health Report. Owen, Wellis B. “Aging Octopi Anticipate the Ocean Floor.” Ocean Times , Sep. 17, 2017.

Loon, B., J. Flomboxton, and G. Gut. “Medicinal Misinformation about Squid.” Journal of Cephalopod Research , issue 2, volume 234, 2018, pp. 45-67.

After students have developed a personal and practical philosophy of truth, the “fake news” course gives them an opportunity to actually practice truth seeking. This second unit of the course introduces the empathetic information literacy method—intellectual and affective “moves” for investigating, in the form of a research essay, the accuracy of a given claim. The five moves—pause, ask, care, check, and act—ask students to genuinely investigate a given claim in a thoughtful and careful way (in both senses of care-ful). The method and all of the moves are explained in an essay I go over with students during class ( also available here on Writing Commons ). Through homework assignments and in-class activities, we work through the five moves together in investigating a claim often made against those folks from Central America who enter the US without the proper documentation. Each step along the way, we consider what the move is and why it matters and how to practice it in this particular case. 

We begin with discussing specific actual instances of the claim being made, which students are required to find as a homework assignment and bring to class. Instances range from the El Paso mass shooter manifesto to Tweets from the president of the United States. After putting the claim on the table, so to speak, we launch into the investigation, beginning with the pause move. Here I lead the class in breathing exercises, invite them to journal a bit about why they care to get the investigation right, and even lead them in a prayer for wisdom and discernment. For the ask move, we turn the claim we are investigating into a question ( is it true? ) and brainstorm together as many related questions that this question leads to, which often include questions about how many folks are entering into the US, who they are, why they are coming, what the law actually says, what the definition of certain words in the claim are, etc. 

Next, for the care move, we read the primary text for this unit: Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions , a memoir of the author’s time translating for unaccompanied child refugees from Central America appearing before US immigration courts. I make sure to tell students that, since Luiselli is a writer and an activist, we are not necessarily to take her book as a credible source on the facts of situation. That’s not her area of training nor her aim. Instead, we are to take in the human stories she tells as a way to care about the facts of the situation. Her stories ought to motivate us to “get it right.” The same goes for a number of short video documentaries we watch together in class, including “’If you come back, we’ll kill you’: Central Americans seek refuge in US only to be sent home,” “Between Borders: American Migrant Crisis,” and “On the Road with the Migrant Caravan.” Upon watching these videos in class, I invite students to free-write in ways that practice empathetic imagination, considering the motivations, fears, and joys of the people whose faces they’ve now seen, whose voices they’ve now heard, whose names they now know. Again, I stress, these documentaries do not necessarily tell us the answer to the questions we are investigating, but they give us a human connection and context for our investigation.

After we have gone to such lengths to set ourselves up to find the truth the best we can—pausing so as not to rush to conclusions, asking questions rather than grasping immediately for answers, putting our hearts in the game—then we do the more traditional work of fact checking. I ask the students to find several credible sources that speak to the claim we’re investigating as well as several sources, whether credible or not, that offer an alternative perspective to what they’ve seen so far. I also bring in several articles for us all to look at together, working through them as a class sentence by sentence to see how credible they are based on the truth sorting and truth distorting strategies they use. For instance, a Washington Post article by Meagan Flynn ( “An ‘invasion of illegal aliens’: The oldest immigration fear-mongering metaphor in America” ) presents multiple perspectives, gives historical context to the claim, quotes and links to qualified experts on the topic and to primary documents, and leaves the final conclusion appropriately open ended for readers (all truth sorting strategies), whereas a Breitbart article ( “Donald Trump: ‘Invasion’ Coming at the Border; U.S. Has ‘Captured’ Thousands of Illegal Aliens” ) simply repeats uncritically, without fact checking or providing context, one perspective from someone who is not an expert in the area (all truth distorting strategies). I tell students, though, that they still have to do their own research. I might have stacked the deck with my examples. They can’t take my word for the facts. Following my example on how to check the credibility of sources but not necessarily coming to the same conclusion as me, they have to do their own checking. Once they have done so, I require them to make a determination—what, based on credible sources, they conclude, pending further evidence, about the claim they are investigating. They may decide the claim is true, false, somewhere in between, mixed, or indeterminate based on the research they have done so far.

After they make their determination, I require the students to undertake one real and tangible action based on what they find. I give them examples of what they might do, including voting, donating, volunteering, raising awareness, writing their legislators, and committing personal acts of kindness. 

The whole time that we have been practicing these five moves together, students have been writing informally about each move as homework. When we get to the end of this unit, we spend some time pulling those homework assignments together, revising them, and adding to them to create the unit’s research essay, with written assignment instructions and an example paper as guides.

• Daily Writing 9: Collect at least two real-life examples of folks making the claim that those traveling from Central America into the US without permission amount to an “invasion.”
• Read: Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends , Chapter I: “Border.”
• Daily Writing 10: Select at least two passages from this chapter to copy out and then relate or respond to in some personal way. You might journal about how it makes you feel to read. You might imagine what it would be like to be in the shoes of the people it describes. You might also respond creatively, such as with a drawing or painting or song. You might write out a prayer.
• Read: Luiselli, Chapter II: “Court.”
• Daily Writing 11: Again, copy out at least two passages from this chapter and respond personally.
• Read: Luiselli, Chapter III: “Home.”
• Daily Writing 12 Again, copy out at least two passages from this chapter and respond personally.
• Read: Luiselli, Chapter IV: “Community.”
• Daily Writing 13: Again, copy out at least two passages from this chapter and respond personally.
• Pew Research Center , pewresearch.org/topics/immigration/
• The Atlantic , theatlantic.com/category/immigration/
• The New York Times . nytimes.com/topic/subject/immigration-and-emigration
• The Washington Post , washingtonpost.com/immigration/
• Snopes.com , snopes.com/fact-check/category/immigration/
• Politifact.com , politifact.com/immigration/
• FactCheck.org , factcheck.org/issue/immigration/
• The Wall Street Journal , wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=immigration
• The Conversation , theconversation.com/global/topics/immigration-411
• Forbes.com , forbes.com/search/?q=immigration
• Daily Writing 14: Summarize what information you are taking away from the two or more articles you choose to help you investigate the topic and explain why you find the sources to be credible.
• Find and Read: At least two articles that present a perspective on the topic that contrasts with the ones you’ve already considered. You may have already come across some in the sources listed above. Additionally, the following website exists to specifically help people find multiple perspectives on topics: All Sides , allsides.com/topics/immigration . Sometimes alternative perspectives will be equally credible. Other times they will not.
• Daily Writing 15: Summarize what information you are taking away from the two or more articles you choose to help you investigate the topic and explain whether or not you find the sources to be credible.
• Daily Writing 16: Based on all of the checking you have done so far, make a determination—it can be tentative, your decision so far, open to revision in the future—about the claim you have been investigating. Is it true? False? Mostly true? Mostly false? Mixed? Impossible to determine with the evidence you have encountered so far? What are the reasons for your determination?
• Donate or volunteer for an organization defending the border
• Write to your elected representatives to ask them to act
• Vote for candidates who prioritize border security or neighborly policies toward Central America
• Raise awareness about the invasion among friends, family, social media, etc.
• Counter protest those supporting refugees
• Donate to or volunteer for an organization supporting refugees
• Write to your elected representatives to ask them to help
• Vote for candidates who prioritize helping refugees or neighborly policies toward Central America
• Raise awareness about the false claim among friends, family, social media, etc.
• Protest in support of refugees
• Become a paid subscriber to a newspaper that produces investigative journalism
• Donate or volunteer to an organization promoting journalistic integrity or fighting fake news
• Go to the border to continue researching in person
• Write your elected representatives to ask them to investigate
• Vote for candidates who prioritize accuracy
• Come up with your own appropriate action, perhaps combining actions from the above lists
• DUE: Essay 2

Essay 3: Applying Empathetic Information Literacy Individually

Choose-Your-Own “Fake News”

This essay will follow precisely the same instructions as the previous essay—the same structure, the same 1000-word minimum, the same MLA formatting, the same grading criteria. So reread the instructions for that essay while working on this one. The difference is that now you will be investigating a claim of your own choosing. The claim should be something that is potentially “fake news”—that is to say, something that may be false or that has been called false. If you like, you may partner with classmates to investigate the same topic and share resources. But you must conduct your own investigation, find and read your own sources, and write your own research essay. The only added step for this essay is deciding on a claim to investigate. Then, just as you did before, you will find real-life instances of people making that claim and then launch into practicing the Empathic Information Literacy method, pausing, asking, caring, checking, and acting.

Some examples of possible claims to investigate include:

• CLAIM: Detox diets improve your health.
• CLAIM: Cramming works.
• Claim: Sleep is optional in college.
• CLAIM: You learn best through your learning style (visual, auditory, etc.).
• CLAIM: Spanking is healthy for children.
• CLAIM: Some people are just born better at academics.
• CLAIM: Global warming is a hoax.
• CLAIM: Violent video games lead to mass shootings.
• CLAIM: Millions of people vote illegally in US elections.
• CLAIM: Genetically modified organism (GMO) food is dangerous to eat.
• CLAIM: Making abortion illegal stops people from having abortions.
• Claim: The Civil War was not primarily about slavery.
• Claim: CNN is fake news.
• Claim: Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization.
• CLAIM: Feminists want not equality but for women to have power over men.
• CLAIM: College is not worth the money.
• CLAIM: Countries that pay for free healthcare for all go bankrupt.
• CLAIM: Vaccines cause autism.
• CLAIM: Accusations of sexual assault are usually false.
• CLAIM: Essential oils can heal you.
• CLAIM: It’s best to marry young.
• CLAIM: Women are less happy in life if they do not have children.
• CLAIM: Money can’t make people happier.
• CLAIM: LGBTQ characters now dominate movie and TV roles.
• CLAIM: Pit bulls and Rottweilers are more dangerous dog breeds.
• CLAIM: You need to eat meat to stay or become physically strong.
• CLAIM: Evolution is a “theory” made up without evidence to deny God.
• CLAIM: White men now have the hardest time getting jobs.
• CLAIM: The KJV of the Bible is the most accurate translation.

You may also come up with your own claim to investigate. The trick will be to find something that is a matter of fact, rather than a matter of opinion, and something about which there exists a lot of misinformation as well as sufficient credible information.

When choosing a claim, you will probably want to pick something that you already care or are interested or curious about but that you have not yet absolutely made your mind up about. That way you will be motivated enough to investigate but not so “motivated” that you cannot investigate with an open mind.

In this penultimate unit of the fake news course, we move from investigating together a claim, with a great deal of involvement and guidance from the teacher, to each student investigating a claim of their own and finding all of their own sources. The daily activities in this unit mostly consist of reviewing the moves the students are supposed to make, having students share and discuss with their classmates their own work in process, answering questions that arise during the process, and giving students structured and unstructured time during class to write. I have also found it helpful to break the class up into smaller writing groups and meet with them one at a time to talk about their work in progress, a form of “small group” conferencing swapped out for class time. Individual conferencing would also, of course, be beneficial.

• Read: Instructions for Essay 3: Choose-Your-Own “Fake News.”
• Review : Corrigan, “Empathetic Information Literacy.”
• Daily Writing 18: Select a claim to investigate, something that you think might be “fake news” or something that has been accused of being false. Find at least two examples of people making this claim (or examples of people calling the claim false, if applicable).
• Daily Writing 19: Turn the claim you have chosen to investigate into a genuine question. Consider what the possible answers to the question might be.
• Find and Read, Watch, Listen, Have a Conversation with, Etc.: A text or a person that will help you connect with the human beings—the actual lives—at stake behind the issue you’re investigating.
• Daily Writing 20: Describe what you did for today’s “reading” and then write or create a personal response.
• Again, Engage: Something or someone that will help you connect with the humans behind the topic.
• Daily Writing 21: Describe what you did for today’s “reading” and then write or create a personal response.
• Daily Writing 22 : Describe what you did for today’s “reading” and then write or create a personal response.
• Find and Read: At least two credible sources on your topic.
• Daily Writing 23: Summarize what you are taking away from the sources and why you find them to be credible.
• Find and Read: At least two articles that present a perspective on the topic that contrasts with the ones you’ve already considered.
• Daily Writing 24: Summarize what you are taking away from the sources you choose and explain whether or not you find them credible.
• Daily Writing 25: Based on all of the checking you have done so far, make a determination—it can be tentative, your decision so far, open to revision in the future—about the claim you have been investigating. Is it true? False? Mostly true? Mostly false? Mixed? Impossible to determine with the evidence you have encountered so far? What are the reasons for your determination?
• Daily Writing 26: Complete and document at least one action based on what you have found in investigating this topic.
• Work On: Essay 3
• DUE: Essay 3 

Essay 4: Final Reflection

What Have You Learned?

Write an informal essay of 750-1500 words reflecting on how you’ve done in the course, what you’ve learned, how you’ve grown, what areas you’d still like to grow in, and how you can apply what you’ve learned in this course in the future. Make sure to include and discuss multiple quotations from (a) the course readings and (b) your own work in the course.

The final week of the course is used to allow students to catch up on any late or missing work they may need to, to look back over the course and reflect on what we’ve learned, and look ahead to how it might apply in the future. For the “final exam,” students write and share with one another a final reflection essay. 

• Read: The instructions for Essay 4. Begin writing the essay.
• DUE: Essay 4 

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Home — Essay Samples — Philosophy — Philosophical Concepts — Truth

Essays on Truth

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Of Truth, by Francis Bacon

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• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

"Of Truth" is the opening essay in the final edition of the philosopher, statesman and jurist  Francis Bacon 's "Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral" (1625). In this essay, as associate professor of philosophy Svetozar Minkov points out, Bacon addresses the question of "whether it is worse to lie to others or to oneself--to possess truth (and lie, when necessary, to others) or to think one possesses the truth but be mistaken and hence unintentionally convey falsehoods to both oneself and to others" ("Francis Bacon's 'Inquiry Touching Human Nature,'" 2010). In "Of Truth," Bacon argues that people have a natural inclination to lie to others: "a natural though corrupt love, of the lie itself."

"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly, there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief, affecting free-will in thinking as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth, nor again that when it is found it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor, but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open daylight that doth not show the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum daemonum [the wine of devils] because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God in the works of the days was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well, "It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below; but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below"*; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business: it will be acknowledged, even by those that practice it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which goeth basely upon the belly and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious; and therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace and such an odious charge. Saith he, "If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards man." For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men: it being foretold that when Christ cometh, "He shall not find faith upon the earth."

*Bacon's paraphrase of the opening lines of Book II of "On the Nature of Things" by Roman poet Titus Lucretius Carus.

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TOEFL Essay 2 – Telling the truth

TOEFL – Quick Essay Analysis

Here is a sample essay for TOEFL Writing (Independent Essay). It is a topic about an abstract concept -a moral value, so candidates need to think about this carefully. An analysis of the question shows that the essay required appears to be one of ‘agree/disagree’ so this essay is essentially argumentative. In this sample, the author has chosen to disagree that truthfulness is no longer necessary today. The author’s stand is implied in the first paragraph, without the express use of the word ‘disagree’ but nonetheless, the author’s stand is clear. Three main points were put forth to support the author’s stand.

Sample Topic/Question

Truthfulness is a virtue that is held in high regard in many societies. However, modern life sometimes presents situations where it is better not to tell the truth. Do you agree or disagree that the truth is not always necessary and that sometimes it is even better not to be truthful? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.

Sample Answer:

As we have evolved as a society, some people contend that often, the line between truth and untruth has been blurred. The question is whether it is still necessary to be truthful all the time. My personal view is that truthfulness is still very much needed and the proverbial grey area is nothing but a convenient excuse created by the liars in our society.

The most important reason for us to be truthful is to uphold and maintain our integrity. A truthful person is someone dependable who can be relied on to present things honestly. The old adage, ‘Honesty is the best policy’, still applies today. If someone is honest, it means that others can put their trust in that person and this trust is often translated into favorable reviews which are worth far more than gold.

Those who argue that it is acceptable to tell white lies may present a convincing case at first, but a lie is still a lie, regardless of the intention of the lie. In the long run, telling the truth will always be for the greater good. For instance, when a woman asks, ‘How do I look?’, some people may be tempted to tell a white lie and tell her that she looks good even though the opposite may be the case. I personally think that it is better to tell the woman the truth from the onset rather than spare her feelings now but allow her to be laughed at by someone else later.

Another simple reason to tell the truth is that it is far less stressful than having to keep up the pretense that comes with lies. Often, one lie will lead to another one and soon, the liar will find that it is quite stressful trying to keep up with the web of lies. Living with the fear of being found out can take its toll on any person.

In conclusion, there are some universal values which will never erode with time and truthfulness is one of them. Truth will prevail over lies at any time in any situation, and if everyone were to understand this basic principle, the world will be a better place to live in.

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Sojourner Truth Autobiography Essay

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Individuals lead different lives and are remembered for what they were able to accomplish during their lifetime. Sojourner Truth is a well renowned individual who is remembered up to date for her contribution towards people’s lives. This paper gives a critical look at the life and contributions associated with Sojourner Truth, the black abolitionist.

Sojourner Truth was a remarkable woman. She was born a slave in New York in the year 1797 by the name Isabella Baumfree. She died in 1883 at the age of 86. She was daughter to Elizabeth and James Baumfree. At an age of nine, she was sold and started suffering in the hands of the family that bought her.

It was after she was freed from slavery that she changed her name from Isabella Baumfree to Sojourner Truth (a travelling preacher) and decided to be a woman of action. She started travelling far and wide preaching and speaking out for human rights especially in the American Midwest and East.

She joined the abolitionist movement in the late 1840s, which enabled her to become a popular speaker. In the 1850s, Sojourner Truth was in a position to speak on women suffrage. She got associated with various development related groups, for instance, religious movements in an effort to perpetrate her work of fighting for the rights and equality among human kind. This was done with an aim of reducing suffering that people went through, more especially the women (Horn 54).

Sojourner Truth is remembered for the things she was able to accomplish during her life time. The hard life she encountered as a slave contributed greatly to her work as she did not want people, especially women, to continue suffering as she did. Sojourner Truth got married to a slave but due to the harsh conditions she experienced, she escaped along with her infant daughter in the year 1826.

After settling in the new place, Sojourner Truth filed a case in court in an effort to get back her son and startlingly, she won the case. This was not a normal thing for a woman, a black one, and thus Sojourner Truth became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man. One notable contribution was through her eminent impassioned speech entitled ‘Ain’t I a Woman’ at an Ohio women’s rights convention in the year 1851.

The speech was aimed at fighting for the rights of women and she convinced the audience that women deserved equal rights to those of men. Being a woman, she was able to put out the sufferings that women went through during that time and combined with the power of personal testimony. Sojourner Truth was able to make pivotal contributions towards the fight for racial and gender equality.

She was also involved in other speeches all aimed at fighting for the rights of women and other less fortunate people in the community. Some of them include the Mob Convention presented on 7 th September, 1853, the American Equal Rights Association presented on 9 th and 10 th May, 1867, and the Eighth Anniversary of Negro Freedom on the New Year’s Day in 1871.

All these speeches were significant and tried to put sense among the people, especially those in power, on the importance of treating all mankind appropriately for the sake of having a better world where everyone is entitled to human rights and thus happiness. Her strong foundation on religion played a crucial role in strengthening her and making her speeches believable among mankind.

The fact that Sojourner Truth also talked from experience, in regard to how she suffered as a slave even for minor issues such as failing to communicate in English, also helped greatly in making people understand her cry and thus take necessary actions aimed at facilitating equality and justice for all (Wooden 112).

Sojourner Truth got involved with various religious groups that she considered relevant in fighting for justice and fairness. One of the groups is the famous Spiritualism religious movement of the time which Sojourner Truth associated with through a group by the name Progressive Friends. This group was incredibly helpful and worked under principles that fought for justice and equality among mankind for instance non-violence, and women’s rights and equality among others.

Another critical accomplishment that Sojourner Truth was able to make was seen during the Civil war. Here, Sojourner Truth engaged in various activities in an attempt to raise food and clothing contributions for the black people. As an African American, Sojourner Truth was in a good position to understand the sufferings that the blacks went through under the effects of racism.

It was in 1864 that Sojourner Truth met Abraham Lincoln at the White House to bring out her views about what she observed around her. She was able to challenge the discrimination practices that were perpetrated in the name of racism. In addition, Sojourner Truth assisted in recruiting black troops for the Union Army to ensure that the blacks did not suffer much in the hands of the whites.

This shows her fight against racism, an aspect that she considered to be an obstacle to not only human happiness but also development. Though unsuccessful, Sojourner Truth tried to secure land from the federal government to help resettle the slaves after the Civil war. This shows the love she had for mankind especially those who were discriminated against.

Sojourner Truth is credited for various reforms that she advocated and pushed for while she was still active and in various positions she was able to secure in the course of her life. Among the things she focused on was speaking about abolition, women rights and equality, reforms in the prison where she advocated for proper handling of the inmates as well as preaching against capital punishment. These aspects have helped greatly in improving people’s lives through enhancing justice and human rights.

Sojourner Truth remained to be an active woman, helping people of different caliber through the power of voice and making things done by those in power until in 1875 when her grandson, with whom she was very close, fell ill and died. Sojourner Truth was forced to go back to Michigan where she got ill and died in 1883. During her time, Sojourner Truth had numerous friends and supporters and she also gained favor from influential individuals, for instance, Wendell Phillips and Laura Smith Havilland.

However, not everyone appreciated her and her work and therefore she suffered some rejections, though minimal. For instance, she underwent some intimidation where she was accused to be a man at a meeting in Silver Lake, Indiana, based on the fact that she was extremely tall. To prove the accuser wrong, Sojourner Truth went an extra mile and opened her blouse in an effort to reveal her breast (Mabee and Newhouse 22).

All in all, it’s clear that Sojourner Truth lived a good life trying to help people in all ways that she could despite not being in a good position to do so. For this reason, many people have lived to admire and cherish her lifestyle. She has therefore been honored in many ways over the years since her accomplishments cannot go unmentioned.

For instance, a memorial stone was laid in the Stone History Tower Monument park in 1937, a historical marker was made (1961) to commemorate members of her family who were buried with her in the cemetery and a commemorative postage stamp made in 1986. There was also a community-wide celebration of the 200 th anniversary of her birth in1997 among other celebrations. These are just but a few (Women in History par 16).

From the above discussion; it is evident that Sojourner Truth played great role in her lifetime. For this reason, she is remembered up to date for her accomplishments and the changes she was able to make among people. The fact that she was a woman has contributed to her fame greatly since most men of her time were not in a position to effect changes that Sojourner Truth was able to accomplish.

Being an African American woman abolitionist and supporter of the women’s right movement played a great role in contributing to Sojourner Truth’s successes and achievements. This is because she understood what the blacks went through in the hands of the whites and was therefore in a good position to fight for their rights, out of experience.

Works Cited

Horn, Geoffrey. Sojourner Truth: Speaking Up for Freedom . New York: Crabtree Publishing Company, 2009.

Mabee Carleton and Newhouse Mabee Susan. Sojourner Truth: Slave, Prophet, Legend. New York: NYU Press, 1995.

Wooden, Lenny. Sojourner Truth . New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003.

Women in History. “Sojourner Truth biography.” Lakewood Public Library , 2011. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2018, October 17). Sojourner Truth. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sojourner-truth/

"Sojourner Truth." IvyPanda , 17 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/sojourner-truth/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'Sojourner Truth'. 17 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Sojourner Truth." October 17, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sojourner-truth/.

1. IvyPanda . "Sojourner Truth." October 17, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sojourner-truth/.

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Read our detailed notes on the Francis Bacon’s famous essay, “Of Truth”. Our notes cover Of Truth summary and analysis.

Of Truth by Francis Bacon Summary & Analysis

In this essay, Bacon has presented the objective truth in various manifestations.Similarly, Bacon shares with us the subjective truth, operative in social life. “OF TRUTH” is Bacon’s masterpiece that shows his keen observation of human beings with special regard to truth. In the beginning of the essay, Bacon rightly observes that generally people do not care for truth as Pilate, the governor of the Roman Empire, while conducting the trial of Jesus Christ, cares little for truth:

“What is truth? Said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.”

Advancing his essay, Bacon explores the reasons why the people do not like truth. First, truth is acquired through hard work and man is ever reluctant to work hard. Secondly, truth curtails man’s freedom. More than that the real reason of man’s disliking to truth is that man is attached to lies which Bacon says “a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.” Man loves falsehood because, Bacon says that truth is as if the bright light of the day and would show what men, in actual, are. They look attractive and colourful in the dim light of lies.He futher adds,

“A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.”

It is a fact that man prefers to cherish illusions, which make his life more interesting. With a profound observation of man’s psychology, Bacon states that if deprived of false pride and vanities, the human mind would contract like a deflated balloon and these human beings would become poor, sad and ill. However, poetic untruth is not gone unnoticed by Bacon’s piercing intellect. He says though poetic untruth is a wine of the Devil in priest’s eyes, yet it is not as harmful as the other lies are. Bacon being a literary artist illustrates this concept with an apt imagery that the poetic untruth is but the shadow of a lie. The enquiry of truth, knowledge of truth and belief of truth are compared with the enjoyment of love. Such a comparison lends the literary charm to this essay.Bacon further says in that the last act of creation was to create rational faculty, which helps in finding truth, is the finished product of God’s blessing as he says:

“… The last was the light of reason…is the illumination of his spirit.”

Bacon’s moral idealism is obvious when he advancing his argument in favour of truth asserts that the earth can be made paradise only with the help of truth. Man should ever stick to truth in every matter, do the act of charity and have faith in every matter, do the act of charity and have faith in God. Bacon’s strong belief in truth and Divinity is stated thus:

“Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.”

From the objective truth, Bacon passes judgment, to the subjective truth, which he calls “the truth of civil business”. It is the compelling quality of truth, Bacon observes, that the persons who do not practice truth, acknowledge it. Bacon’s idealistic moral attitude is obvious in these lines when he says: “….. that clear and round dealing is the honour of man’s nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work better, but it embaseth it.”

Bacon further asserts that the liars are like a snake that goes basely upon the belly and not upon the feet. Imagery comprising comparison is apt and convincing. Moreover, Bacon refers to Montaigne who is of the view that “a lie faces God and shrinks from man”. Bacon adds that falsehood is the height of wickedness and as such will invite the Judgment of God upon all human beings on Doom’s day. Therefore, Bacon concludes his essay with didacticism with a tinge of Christian morality.

In the essay, “OF TRUTH”, there is no digression. All the arguments in the essay pertain to the single main idea, truth. Bacon’s wide learning is clearly observed when he refers to Pilate (history), Lucian (Greek literature), Creation, Montaigne (a French essayist). “OF TRUTH” is enriched with striking similes and analogies, such as he equates liars as a snake moving basely on its belly, mixture of falsehood is like an alloy of gold and silver.Similarly, truth is ‘open day light’ whereas lie is ‘candle light i.e fake dim light. Truth is ‘a pearl’ i.e worthy and precious whereas ,lie is ‘a diamond’ that reflects light illusions when placed in daylight.

The essay “OF TRUTH” is not ornamental as was the practice of the Elizabethan prose writers. Bacon is simple, natural and straightforward in his essay though Elizabethan colour is also found in “OF TRUTH” because there is a moderate use of Latinism in the essay. Economy of words is found in the essay not alone, but syntactic brevity is also obvious in this essay. We find conversational ease in this essay, which is the outstanding feature of Bacon’s style. There is a peculiar feature of Bacon i.e. aphorism. We find many short, crispy, memorable and witty sayings in this essay.

Therefore, Bacon’s essay “OF TRUTH” is rich in matter and manner. This is really a council ‘civil and moral’.

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Donald Trump’s Hush-Money Trial Is a Referendum on Truth

T he closing arguments for Donald Trump’s hush-money trial have ended and a jury now decides Trump’s fate in a Manhattan courtroom. But in many ways, it is truth itself that is on trial.

For the past several weeks, jurors have heard arguments regarding Trump’s alleged attempt to disinform Americans and sway the 2016 presidential election by falsifying business records and concealing hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Depending on your view of Trump, the trial is either a much-awaited moment of accountability or a politically motivated case of prosecutorial overreach. But the case represents something more than the guilt or innocence of the former president—it is a referendum on whether facts and law still matter. Depending on which view one has of the case, the verdict likely will be seen as a commitment to the rule of law or a miscarriage of justice.

First comes the finding of facts. In our post-truth era, a jury’s quest for the facts may seem like a quaint notion. Yet every day in courtrooms across America, citizens selected at random gather to discern facts from evidence and render verdicts. Their verdicts to hold people accountable for committing crimes is what upholds the rule of law.

Read More: 5 Things We Learned From the Trump Trial

In Trump’s case, the jury will soon deliberate on whether Trump falsified business records regarding the payment of $130,000 to Daniels, and did so with intent to conceal violations of campaign and tax laws. According to the testimony of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, the October 2016 release of a recording of Trump making disparaging comments about groping women on an open mic for the Access Hollywood television show made it imperative to prevent another disclosure about sexual impropriety before the election. Unless Trump blocked Americans from learning about his alleged act of adultery, Cohen testified, Trump believed his campaign would suffer a “ total disaster .”  In addition, David Pecker , former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified at trial that in August 2016, shortly after Trump became the GOP nominee for president, he paid $150,000 to silence former Playboy model Karen McDougal regarding a extra-marital relationship with Trump.

Some critics of the case argue that there is nothing illegal about paying hush money, and that charges would not have been filed at all if the defendant’s name were anything other than Donald Trump. Testimony during the trial has disclosed that other famous men entered agreements with AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, to kill stories alleging extra-marital affairs.

But that criticism misses the point. It is not the payment of hush money alone that is the crime. It is the cover-up by someone who is a candidate for president. Running for public office brings with it the responsibility of filing accurate campaign finance reports. The indictment charges that when Trump allegedly caused 34 checks, invoices, and ledger entries to be falsely characterized as legal expenses, he intended to conceal violations of state and federal campaign finance laws as well as tax laws. New York law makes it a crime to conspire to promote or prevent the election of a candidate by illegal means. Federal law prohibits corporate contributions, like the one made by AMI, and limits the amount of individual contributions to $2,700, far below the $130,000 allegedly made by Cohen. When Trump reimbursed Cohen, he allegedly falsely characterized the payments as income, resulting in the tax charge.

In addition to violating the law, the alleged scheme, if true, also betrays the trust of the American people. Voters have a right to know the facts about a candidate when casting their ballots. If candidates can covertly manipulate public perception to serve their own interests, they undermine the public’s ability to make decisions based on facts.

The jurors will decide whether the prosecution has met its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and return a verdict. The prosecution’s case is far from perfect. Daniels and Cohen both admitted to making prior inconsistent statements. Cohen, who went to prison for perjury, even admitted to stealing money from the former president. Even if convicted, as a first-time offender, Trump is unlikely to face a prison term of any significance or be removed from the ballot as the presumptive GOP nominee for president. But the verdict will likely elicit strong opinions, even from people who did not listen to all of the evidence or review all of the exhibits, as the jury did.

Read More: What Happens if Trump Is Convicted? Your Questions, Answered

This is where the rule of law will be tested. As a former prosecutor, I was trained to argue cases in court zealously, but to accept a jury’s verdict with respect, even when it was not the decision I had sought. I learned to acknowledge that reasonable minds can disagree, and that it is more important to uphold public confidence in our legal system than to obtain a conviction in any particular case. To support our legal system means that we focus on a fair process, and tolerate decisions with which we disagree. Otherwise, our criminal justice system would fall apart.

But throughout this trial, Trump and his supporters have groomed the public to distrust the fairness of the trial. Trump has called the case a “sham” and “a Biden show trial, ” even though the case was brought by a state court prosecutor outside the president’s federal chain of command. Trump has called Justice Juan Merchan “corrupt” and “highly conflicted. ” Trump even falsely claimed that the gag order entered to prevent either party from making comments outside of court about witnesses, court staff and jurors prevents him from testifying, a “misunderstanding” Justice Merchan corrected on the record, but a narrative that Trump can use to explain away a decision not to testify.

On May 14, a group of Republican members of Congress attended the trial, dressed in identical navy blue suits with white shirts and red ties. Outside the courthouse, they addressed the media, and House Speaker Mike Johnson disparaged all of the pending criminal cases against Trump. “These are politically motivated trials, and they are a disgrace,” he said. “It is election interference.” Their unity and uniforms signaled an allegiance to one man over the rule of law.

Their stunt was the latest chapter in Trump’s playbook to disparage institutions that might stand in his way. By undermining public confidence in potential critics, Trump can downplay their inevitable criticism as illegitimate. Blunting potential critics is the reason he refers to the media as “the enemy of the people” and career civil servants as “the deep state.” And now, according to Trump, any case filed to hold him accountable for alleged criminal conduct is simply “election interference.” Not only do these claims provide pretextual defenses for Trump, they also tend to reduce public confidence in the institutions of democracy.

The jury’s decision in this case will end this trial. But public opinion will render the verdict on truth and the future of our faith in the justice system.

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The Shocking Truth About Essay Writing Services

Empowering you to launch your business at any budget

Why Do Students Feel As If They Need Them?

I recently had the opportunity to speak with a former writer for a prestigious essay writing service and his experience in the industry.

"I have witnessed the steady growth of this industry for years. When I became part of the team for Rush Essay , I thought we would be writing academic content for students with below-average capacity. I was in for a surprise. We got orders from all types of students - lazy ones who only want to find an easier way out of a messy situation, as well as really smart young people who simply couldn't find the time to do their own work. I was convinced that students who got into Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge, and other prestigious US and UK universities would work much harder than the ones admitted to "secondary" schools. In fact, they do work hard; and that is the exact reason why they cannot afford to fail. In some cases, the assignment's requirements are so complex that it's difficult for the students to understand what the real question is. The struggles of ESL students are even greater; it is nearly impossible for them to produce degree-level academic content. Since the charges for plagiarism are serious, they have to rely on essay writing services as a solution that provides unique content by the given deadline."

Some statistics - Who buys papers online?

The essay writing industry is a source of interesting statistical data. California, New York and Texas are the most popular regions where orders were coming from. Stanford, UCLA, Berkeley, NYU, Columbia, University of Houston, and other institutions from these states are known for their competitive systems. A student who hopes to graduate from one of these universities usually needs to rely on "unorthodox" methods to deal with all challenges imposed by the professors. Since academic writing is becoming one of the most prominent aspects of the educational system, the constant development of the custom-writing industry is clearly justified.

The most popular types of content requested from custom-writing services are essays, research papers, and MA thesis. Students have an abundance of essays and research papers to write, so there is nothing unusual in the fact that professional writers mostly deal with these types of assignments. When it comes to subjects, students most commonly struggle with projects for Business, English language, and Management courses.

According to those within the industry, buying papers is a necessary reaction to serious underlying issues in the educational system. All college and university professors will tell you the same thing: to them, the act of purchasing papers online is no different than plagiarism. However, some argue that the issue is more complex than that claiming, that the content completed by professional writers is not plagiarized. It is completely unique, well-researched and properly-referenced. When a customer buys this type of product, he has the right to use it as a source for another paper, or simply submit it as his own. The teacher may suspect that the student didn't write a particular paper, but there is no way to prove such claims. Higher education is an industry on its own. Universities accept more applicants, including international students who don't have the needed grasp of the English language to write extraordinary academic content. On the other hand, they don't provide effective support that would enable these students to fit into the system.

The benefits of using custom-writing services are immense for foreign students. In addition, students with part-time jobs, older students who have families and those who are going through tough personal struggles simply need help to go through all challenges they face. The rapid growth of the custom-writing industry is a symptom of the great weaknesses within the educational system, which put students through a great deal of stress and emotional struggle.

What About The Moral Argument?

We all know the definition of cheating is, and simply saying that the work is more challenging for most or that they may not receive enough support from educators, or have enough time to dedicate to the work does not change the definition of cheating, or make it right in any way. Speaking from both ends of the argument, there are those that feel as if these services are creating lazy students and helping to grow an unprepared workforce.

Writing is a vital skill that is applied in many areas of life, especially for those who are entering the workforce, whether they are doing so as an employee or a business owner.

With communications being a vital skill for anyone entering the workforce, our education system recognizes this and strives to prepare our students by requiring them to improve this skill through writing assignments. By outsourcing the work, students, are depriving themselves of the opportunity to strengthen their communications and writing skills.

Are professors and teachers that difficult to reach that so many prefer to risk the stiff penalties of being caught cheating, rather than asking for help? There are many other options available for international, and any other student that may be struggling to keep up, from study groups, to programs within schools and Universities, such as writing centers. What they do require, however, is that the student actually make an effort, by simply making the decision to apply themselves.

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Announcing TGC’s 2024 Essay Contest for Young Adults

Writers aged 16–22 can get published and win $500.

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The Gospel Coalition announces its 2024 essay contest, inviting young adults (ages 16–22) to explore and write about God’s faithfulness, their relationship with technology, and their heart for full-time ministry in our secular age.

Winning authors will receive a prize, and their essays will be published on TGC’s website. In addition, every writer who submits an essay will receive a coupon code for $50 off the Gen-Z registration for our TGC25 conference .

Essay Requirements

Each 800–1,000 word essay must be original, previously unpublished, and must respond to one of the following three prompts. With each of these prompts, contestants should draw from their own experiences and convictions, and use Scripture to support their conclusions. (Want examples? Read the winning essays from 2022 and 2023 .) Contestants must give permission to TGC to publish their work, and each essay will be judged by TGC’s editorial team.

Submissions will be accepted from June 1 to July 1 and winners will be announced on September 2, 2024.

1. When did the Lord love you by not giving you what you wanted?

Many of us have unfulfilled desires. When was a time you saw the Lord’s love and kindness when he withheld something from you? What was it that you wanted and how did you see the Lord’s faithfulness through not giving it to you? Tell us what you learned from your experience, especially considering that our culture tells us we deserve to have all our desires fulfilled.

2. How has the gospel changed your relationship with your phone?

Today, phones are considered a necessity rather than a luxury. How does the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ change how you view your phone and how you use it? How has your phone been a hindrance and how has it been an asset to your relationship with the Lord? Tell us what you’ve learned in navigating how to use your phone for the glory of God.

3. Why are you considering full-time ministry?

There’s a greater need than ever for young people to pursue full-time ministry. Why are you considering making ministry your vocation? Tell us your heart behind it, why you think it’s important, and what influences in your life have led you to move forward in this direction.

The contest winner will receive $500; second place will receive a $100 gift card to the TGC bookstore; third place will receive an assortment of books. The winning essays will be published on TGC’s website, as will any other essays the judges select.

Read the full contest rules and upload your essay. Questions? Contact [email protected] .

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Alfonso Cuarón Assigned His ‘Harry Potter’ Cast Homework: Write an Essay About Your Character

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Alfonso Cuarón knew he wanted franchise installment “ Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ” to be different from the other “Potter” films. So the professor assigned his Hogwarts, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff students some homework.

The director wanted the 2004 “Harry Potter” feature to have a “noir” tone, which Cuarón believed would best present the coming-of-age moment for both the trio of characters played by Daniel Radcliffe , Emma Watson , and Rupert Grint , as well as for the film series itself.

“Chris [Columbus] would help them with intonation and get them excited; Alfonso was treating them as young adults: what are you feeling?” the franchise’s producer David Heyman recalled to Total Film for a 20th-anniversary retrospective interview. Related Stories ‘Godzilla Minus One’ Is Now on Netflix and VOD, With No Advance Notice IATSE Pauses Negotiations on Area Standards Agreement Without a Deal, but Will Pivot Back to Basic Agreement Talks

Part of getting the core cast to grow up onscreen was to have each actor meditate on their respective characters’ motivations. Cuarón went so far as to assign each a writing task.

“Alfonso also had the three kids write essays about their characters,” Heyman said. “Dan wrote a page, Emma wrote 10 or 12, and Rupert didn’t give in anything. Just perfect.”

As Cuarón himself told Total Film, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” was a risky move for his own career.

“The first two ‘Potters’ deal with children’s experience,” Cuarón said. “Characters who are 11 and 12. Innocence. A purity even in the way they see the danger. We were dealing with the first sting of questioning everything, particularly who you are. Suddenly you are not part of the whole; there is a teenage separation.”

Cuarón added that working with Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint especially marked a turning point in the rising actors’ careers.

“They were becoming more aware of the craft of acting and they wanted to go to the next stage,” Cuarón said. “From the get-go we talked about how we wanted to ground everything, to make it about a normal human experience in this world. [We wanted to explore] the internal life of each one of these characters. They were incredibly intuitive about this, and very receptive.”

In fact, del Toro even helped convince Cuarón to agree to direct “The Prisoner of Azkaban.”

“I speak often with Guillermo [del Toro], and a couple of days after, I said, ‘You know, they offered me this “Harry Potter” film, but it’s really weird they offer me this,'” Cuarón told Total Film. “He said, ‘Wait, wait, wait, you said you haven’t read “Harry Potter”?’ I said, ‘I don’t think it’s for me.’ In very florid lexicon, in Spanish, he said, ‘You are an arrogant asshole.'”

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Letters: Seek the truth about retirement system for Ohio teachers

A teacher remembers.

I retired from teaching in 1998. Everything was great. I got a good pension and good health care for me and my wife.

Then Sept. 11, 2001, happened. The State Teachers Retirement System cut health care for my wife after the economy nearly collapsed and the national debt started to skyrocket. But I still got my retirement checks with cost-of-living raises.

Then in 2008 the country nearly went into another Great Depression. STRS had to stop the cost-of-living raises. But I still got my checks and health care.

Then in 2012 the state legislature mandated that STRS be fully funded for all active and retired educators for 30 years. Why? The average retired teacher only lasts 26 years. But I still got my pension and the STRS health plan became self-funded eventually.

When I retired in 1998, our pension fund was valued at around $55 billion. Even through crises and hard times, it is now valued at over $90 billion. Poor management? I think not!

We must not fall victim to greedy, anonymous memo-writing “sleaze balls.” I applaud Gov. Mike DeWine and Attorney General Dave Yost. The rest of us must seek truth over innuendo!

Stephen Horvath, New Franklin

Transparency needed

Thank you for your ongoing coverage of the impending scandal at the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio.

Teachers and retirees have contributed over a lifetime to the funds that STRS manages. Much of these contributions have been invested into hedge funds, private equity, corporate real estate and other exotic instruments.

Teachers and retirees are unable to determine what they own or the true value of their investments. They are told that this knowledge is “proprietary.” This in turn gives the appearance of being a Ponzi scheme.

As Ohio Auditor Keith Faber reported through the Ohio Retirement Study Council, had STRS simply invested into an index fund, it would have outperformed the “investment experts.”

Perhaps transparency will show us why Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost are fighting so hard for secrecy and keep Ohio from another House Bill 6-type scandal.

Jim D. Martin, Akron

What is Horizon Advisory?

I read with interest Michael Douglas’ May 19 column regarding Nippon Steel’s offer to purchase U.S. Steel. Those who condemn the acquisition seem to be primarily opposed to competition for Cleveland-Cliffs, though I do believe scrutiny of foreign ownership is warranted. 

Personally, I am all for private investment (as opposed to taxpayer bailout) to make U.S. Steel a more productive, efficient and competitive global competitor — right here in our backyard. It was interesting to read of the allegations made in a referenced March report by Horizon Advisory suggesting Nippon Steel had a significant China nexus that could lead to a national security risk. Of note was that many of the more inflammatory comments in the Horizon Advisory report were subsequently withdrawn by the authors.

From a cursory web search, I was unable to find much about Horizon Advisory — no office address(es), list of consulting personnel with qualifications, or financial support. Additionally, I found the report (April 2024) online did not indicate who requested (or paid for) it, which would have been helpful in determining the credibility of its analysis.   

Clayton Whitney, Akron

Follow the profits

Regarding the proposed sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel:

Nowhere have I read or heard any mention about where the un-reinvested profits (after “the necessary capital infusion”) would go should the purchase materialize!

“Nippon Steel has pledged to keep the U.S. Steel name and the headquarters in Pittsburgh” … for now!

Ask any Bridgestone Americas employees.

Robin Reid, Fairlawn

Are we paying attention?

According to the Arizona Republic newspaper, as printed May 12 in the Beacon Journal, “Arizona school vouchers are often going to wealthier areas.”

The state is handing out thousands of school vouchers to families whose students were already enrolled in private schools and whose parents lived in wealthy areas. It is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at the expense of the public school system.

Hello, Ohio — it’s happening here as well.

Ohio Republicans have upped the expenditure for school vouchers nearly tenfold since 2008 with more increases promised. Meanwhile, Ohio public schools, which serve about 92% of all students, must rely on levies that many of our communities struggle to pass. A dollar more for a private school is a dollar less for a public school.

In addition, voucher money is rarely if ever accountable to the public and the lack of transparency makes you wonder. Study after study shows that public school students outperform their private school peer group in academic testing. It is a myth that private schools offer most students a better education.

There are over 200 public school systems suing Ohio to stop this overreach. Ohio taxpayers and public school supporters need to call or write their state representatives to stop this egregious practice of subsidizing wealthy families through awarding the vouchers.

Brian Nank, Cuyahoga Falls

No strings attached

You may think that Gov. Mike DeWine is a hero for forcing the legislature back in session to pass a bill to get President Joe Biden on the November ballot. 

But beneath all his talk (buried in his proclamation), DeWine asked the legislature to also pass several poison pills to make it more difficult for citizens to pass ballot issues, which is the only way we have left to fight a gerrymandered legislature that does not act in our interests. 

These gerrymandered legislators had the votes they need to pass these bills, but at least we can shine sunlight on what they are really doing. We should not have to accept these laws that diminish our power in exchange for putting our president’s name on the ballot. 

Every other state is doing this with no strings attached.

Jan Oakley, Sagamore Hills

Such a travesty

After reading the Voice of the People letter from Sue Rice regarding the Ohio State graduation ceremony and seeing comments and clips about it on the news, I am left with four questions.

Was he paid and how much? Who selected the speaker? Who approved the content of the speech? Why hasn’t someone been held accountable (fired) for such a travesty?

Lynne Abramovich, Bath

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Guest Essay

Jamie Raskin: How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas to Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 Cases

By Jamie Raskin

Mr. Raskin represents Maryland’s Eighth Congressional District in the House of Representatives. He taught constitutional law for more than 25 years and was the lead prosecutor in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

Many people have gloomily accepted the conventional wisdom that because there is no binding Supreme Court ethics code, there is no way to force Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from the Jan. 6 cases that are before the court.

Justices Alito and Thomas are probably making the same assumption.

But all of them are wrong.

It seems unfathomable that the two justices could get away with deciding for themselves whether they can be impartial in ruling on cases affecting Donald Trump’s liability for crimes he is accused of committing on Jan. 6. Justice Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, was deeply involved in the Jan. 6 “stop the steal” movement. Above the Virginia home of Justice Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, flew an upside-down American flag — a strong political statement among the people who stormed the Capitol. Above the Alitos’ beach home in New Jersey flew another flag that has been adopted by groups opposed to President Biden.

Justices Alito and Thomas face a groundswell of appeals beseeching them not to participate in Trump v. United States , the case that will decide whether Mr. Trump enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, and Fischer v. United States , which will decide whether Jan. 6 insurrectionists — and Mr. Trump — can be charged under a statute that criminalizes “corruptly” obstructing an official proceeding. (Justice Alito said on Wednesday that he would not recuse himself from Jan. 6-related cases.)

Everyone assumes that nothing can be done about the recusal situation because the highest court in the land has the lowest ethical standards — no binding ethics code or process outside of personal reflection. Each justice decides for him- or herself whether he or she can be impartial.

Of course, Justices Alito and Thomas could choose to recuse themselves — wouldn’t that be nice? But begging them to do the right thing misses a far more effective course of action.

The U.S. Department of Justice — including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, an appointed U.S. special counsel and the solicitor general, all of whom were involved in different ways in the criminal prosecutions underlying these cases and are opposing Mr. Trump’s constitutional and statutory claims — can petition the other seven justices to require Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law.

The Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland can invoke two powerful textual authorities for this motion: the Constitution of the United States, specifically the due process clause, and the federal statute mandating judicial disqualification for questionable impartiality, 28 U.S.C. Section 455. The Constitution has come into play in several recent Supreme Court decisions striking down rulings by stubborn judges in lower courts whose political impartiality has been reasonably questioned but who threw caution to the wind to hear a case anyway. This statute requires potentially biased judges throughout the federal system to recuse themselves at the start of the process to avoid judicial unfairness and embarrassing controversies and reversals.

The constitutional and statutory standards apply to Supreme Court justices. The Constitution, and the federal laws under it, is the “ supreme law of the land ,” and the recusal statute explicitly treats Supreme Court justices as it does other judges: “Any justice, judge or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The only justices in the federal judiciary are the ones on the Supreme Court.

This recusal statute, if triggered, is not a friendly suggestion. It is Congress’s command, binding on the justices, just as the due process clause is. The Supreme Court cannot disregard this law just because it directly affects one or two of its justices. Ignoring it would trespass on the constitutional separation of powers because the justices would essentially be saying that they have the power to override a congressional command.

When the arguments are properly before the court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Sonia Sotomayor will have both a constitutional obligation and a statutory obligation to enforce recusal standards.

Indeed, there is even a compelling argument based on case law that Chief Justice Roberts and the other unaffected justices should raise the matter of recusal on their own, or sua sponte. Numerous circuit courts have agreed with the Eighth Circuit that this is the right course of action when members of an appellate court are aware of “ overt acts ” of a judge reflecting personal bias. Cases like this stand for the idea that appellate jurists who see something should say something instead of placing all the burden on parties in a case who would have to risk angering a judge by bringing up the awkward matter of potential bias and favoritism on the bench.

But even if no member of the court raises the issue of recusal, the urgent need to deal with it persists. Once it is raised, the court would almost surely have to find that the due process clause and Section 455 compel Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves. To arrive at that substantive conclusion, the justices need only read their court’s own recusal decisions.

In one key 5-to-3 Supreme Court case from 2016, Williams v. Pennsylvania, Justice Anthony Kennedy explained why judicial bias is a defect of constitutional magnitude and offered specific objective standards for identifying it. Significantly, Justices Alito and Thomas dissented from the majority’s ruling.

The case concerned the bias of the chief justice of Pennsylvania, who had been involved as a prosecutor on the state’s side in an appellate death penalty case that was before him. Justice Kennedy found that the judge’s refusal to recuse himself when asked to do so violated due process. Justice Kennedy’s authoritative opinion on recusal illuminates three critical aspects of the current controversy.

First, Justice Kennedy found that the standard for recusal must be objective because it is impossible to rely on the affected judge’s introspection and subjective interpretations. The court’s objective standard requires recusal when the likelihood of bias on the part of the judge “is too high to be constitutionally tolerable,” citing an earlier case. “This objective risk of bias,” according to Justice Kennedy, “is reflected in the due process maxim that ‘no man can be a judge in his own case.’” A judge or justice can be convinced of his or her own impartiality but also completely missing what other people are seeing.

Second, the Williams majority endorsed the American Bar Association’s Model Code of Judicial Conduct as an appropriate articulation of the Madisonian standard that “no man can be a judge in his own cause.” Model Code Rule 2.11 on judicial disqualification says that a judge “shall disqualify himself or herself in any proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” This includes, illustratively, cases in which the judge “has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party,” a married judge knows that “the judge’s spouse” is “a person who has more than a de minimis interest that could be substantially affected by the proceeding” or the judge “has made a public statement, other than in a court proceeding, judicial decision or opinion, that commits or appears to commit the judge to reach a particular result.” These model code illustrations ring a lot of bells at this moment.

Third and most important, Justice Kennedy found for the court that the failure of an objectively biased judge to recuse him- or herself is not “harmless error” just because the biased judge’s vote is not apparently determinative in the vote of a panel of judges. A biased judge contaminates the proceeding not just by the casting and tabulation of his or her own vote but by participating in the body’s collective deliberations and affecting, even subtly, other judges’ perceptions of the case.

Justice Kennedy was emphatic on this point : “It does not matter whether the disqualified judge’s vote was necessary to the disposition of the case. The fact that the interested judge’s vote was not dispositive may mean only that the judge was successful in persuading most members of the court to accept his or her position — an outcome that does not lessen the unfairness to the affected party.”

Courts generally have found that any reasonable doubts about a judge’s partiality must be resolved in favor of recusal. A judge “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” While recognizing that the “challenged judge enjoys a margin of discretion,” the courts have repeatedly held that “doubts ordinarily ought to be resolved in favor of recusal.” After all, the reputation of the whole tribunal and public confidence in the judiciary are both on the line.

Judge David Tatel of the D.C. Circuit emphasized this fundamental principle in 2019 when his court issued a writ of mandamus to force recusal of a military judge who blithely ignored at least the appearance of a glaring conflict of interest. He stated : “Impartial adjudicators are the cornerstone of any system of justice worthy of the label. And because ‘deference to the judgments and rulings of courts depends upon public confidence in the integrity and independence of judges,’ jurists must avoid even the appearance of partiality.” He reminded us that to perform its high function in the best way, as Justice Felix Frankfurter stated, “justice must satisfy the appearance of justice.”

The Supreme Court has been especially disposed to favor recusal when partisan politics appear to be a prejudicial factor even when the judge’s impartiality has not been questioned. In Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. , from 2009, the court held that a state supreme court justice was constitutionally disqualified from a case in which the president of a corporation appearing before him had helped to get him elected by spending $3 million promoting his campaign. The court, through Justice Kennedy, asked whether, quoting a 1975 decision, “under a realistic appraisal of psychological tendencies and human weakness,” the judge’s obvious political alignment with a party in a case “poses such a risk of actual bias or prejudgment that the practice must be forbidden if the guarantee of due process is to be adequately implemented.”

The federal statute on disqualification, Section 455(b) , also makes recusal analysis directly applicable to bias imputed to a spouse’s interest in the case. Ms. Thomas and Mrs. Alito (who, according to Justice Alito, is the one who put up the inverted flag outside their home) meet this standard. A judge must recuse him- or herself when a spouse “is known by the judge to have an interest in a case that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”

At his Senate confirmation hearing, Chief Justice Roberts assured America that “judges are like umpires.”

But professional baseball would never allow an umpire to continue to officiate the World Series after learning that the pennant of one of the two teams competing was flying in the front yard of the umpire’s home. Nor would an umpire be allowed to call balls and strikes in a World Series game after the umpire’s wife tried to get the official score of a prior game in the series overthrown and canceled out to benefit the losing team. If judges are like umpires, then they should be treated like umpires, not team owners, fans or players.

Justice Barrett has said she wants to convince people “that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.” Justice Alito himself declared the importance of judicial objectivity in his opinion for the majority in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overruling Roe v. Wade — a bit of self-praise that now rings especially hollow.

But the Constitution and Congress’s recusal statute provide the objective framework of analysis and remedy for cases of judicial bias that are apparent to the world, even if they may be invisible to the judges involved. This is not really optional for the justices.

I look forward to seeing seven members of the court act to defend the reputation and integrity of the institution.

Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, represents Maryland’s Eighth Congressional District in the House of Representatives. He taught constitutional law for more than 25 years and was the lead prosecutor in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

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