What Would Have to Be True?

How do you know? · Page 1 of 2

Name Date
DIRECTIONS: Rewrite each claim so it could be checked: what would you measure, and compare with what?
“This shampoo is better” → “hair washed with this shampoo snaps fewer times in fifty strokes of a comb than hair washed with the old one.”
A claim you can check answers three questions.
1. Who or what exactly is being talked about?
2. What would you measure, and with what?
3. Compared with what?
Better, healthier, stronger and works hide questions 2 and 3.
Done for youThis shampoo is better.
→ Hair washed with this shampoo snaps fewer times in fifty strokes of a comb than hair washed with the old one.
  1. This glue is stronger.
  2. Our street has got noisier.
  3. Kids today cannot concentrate the way they used to.
  4. This app makes you smarter.

What Would Have to Be True? — continued

How do you know? · Page 2 of 2

  1. The number 34 bus is always late.
  2. This coat is warm.
  3. This is the best song ever written. (Read the box underneath before you answer this one.)
  4. Two rewrites of one claim. This cereal is healthier.   A: more people say it feels healthier.   B: a bowl has 4 g less sugar than a bowl of the old one. Both can be checked — which one is about the cereal, and what is the other about?
  5. Write a claim you have actually heard this week — an advert, a friend, somebody at home — and then the version of it that could be checked.
Question 7 cannot be done, and that is fine. "Best song" is about taste, and no measurement settles taste.