In your normal news section of a paper, you get the facts. That’s it. You get to know what happened.

In the opinion section, however, you get more. In the opinion section, you get cause and effect relationships. The opinion section doesn’t just tell you what happened; it tells you why it happened, and what else may happen as a result.

There are, of course, differences in opinion about these cause-and-effect relationships, hence the name “Opinion Section.” But because the opinion section offers a variety of different opinions, instead of just one, it makes it easy for readers to analyze the various arguments and draw conclusions based on them.

The reason the opinion section should be read is that it makes you think. You can’t — or, at least, shouldn’t — either accept or reject a writer’s claims without thinking logically about the points made and the opinions offered.

This process of logical thinking is what makes you smarter. Whether you realize it or not, reading the opinion section contributes to your education.

This process also helps you form better arguments, and chances are good that at some point in your life you will want to persuade someone to do something or to think a certain way.

For example, I could make the claim, as I have many times, that others have no right to the fruits of your labor. You then could accept that as correct or reject it as incorrect. But either way, you should be able to tell me why it is correct or incorrect.

The important thing is not the conclusion that you draw, however. After all, one opinion columnist’s claim will rarely, if ever, be enough to change someone’s mind. The important thing is that you go through the process of discovering why it is that you believe what you believe — and if your beliefs are incorrect, this process of thinking may, over time, cause you to change those beliefs.

This is the real value of the opinion pieces, and it’s something that would be hard to get from the news section.

— Blake Hasenmiller is a senior in industrial engineering and economics from De Witt.