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English Composition · Chapter 6

The Spin Dial

Students scrutinize a quotation and copy a percentage. Reverse that instinct here. Move the sliders and one honest data set will generate two sentences — both arithmetically true, one of them useless or worse. Then try the same discipline on the other kind of evidence that persuades before it informs: your own experience.
Scenario

The same data, two sentences

Technically true
Honest version
Framing inflation—

The other hard kind: experience

“In three years on a step-down unit I have never seen the rapid-response criteria applied consistently.”
Give it a job What is this sentence being asked to prove?
Pick a jobThe same observation is precise evidence for some claims and worthless for others. The line is not about how true it is — it is about what one observer can possibly know.