You can use facts and statistics to support generalizations, to provide context, or to emphasize the importance of your topic, as student writer Sophie Harba does to demonstrate the social benefits of laws designed to prevent chronic disease.

To give just one example, Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition and public health, notes that “a 1% reduction in intake of saturated fat across the population would prevent more than 30,000 cases of coronary heart disease annually and save more than a billion dollars in health care costs” (7).