What is a credible/trustworthy source online? How can we tell? All of us ask these questions. The truth is, we need to evaluate everything we look at to determine if we can trust it, especially websites.
The good news is using the SIFT method can help you decide.
Watch the following video to learn more:
Online Verification Skills - Video 1: Introductory Video by CTRL-F. Video is closed captioned and a transcript is available on YouTube. (Approximately 3 minutes.)
If a claim causes strong emotions — anger, glee, pride, vindication — and that emotion causes you to share a “fact” with others, STOP. Emotionally loaded language is a bias tactic that information outlets use to keep you reading and hopefully sharing the content you have read. You must fact-check this claim. In addition, if you get lost, or hit dead ends, or find yourself going down an increasingly confusing rabbit hole during your investigation, STOP. Back up and start over knowing what you know now. You’re likely to take a more informed path with different search terms and better decisions. Take a moment to STOP, ask yourself whether you know and trust the author, publisher, publication, or website. If you don’t, use the other fact-checking moves, to get a better sense of what you’re looking at, and whether you should trust it.
Read what other people say about the source (publication, author, etc.). The truth is in the network. The technique you are about to learn utilizes 'lateral reading', by leaving the article and seeing what other digital sources are saying about the content producer or author. Don't invest any time reading the webpage/article or going to the site's 'About' page, as you may have previously been taught.
Watch the following video to learn more:
Online Verification Skills — Video 2: Investigate the Source by CTRL-F. Video is closed captioned and transcripts are available on YouTube. (2 minutes, 45 seconds)
Have you been told not to trust Wikipedia? Watch this video, How to Use Wikipedia Wisely, to find out why Wikipedia can be a great tool on the web.
Understand the bias and the credibility of news/content providers by using Media Bias Fact Check. Other useful sites are SourceWatch, FactCheck.org, Politifact, and Snopes.
Look around to see if someone else has already fact-checked the claim or provided a synthesis of research or provided coverage that gives more useful information about the claim or the context of the claim. Generally, I search on the topic or about the news item, and look for other outlets reporting on the same incident or topic.
Watch the following video to learn more:
Skill: Find better coverage with Mike Caulfield by CTRL-F. Video is closed captioned and a transcript is available on YouTube. (4 minutes, 27 seconds.)
Need to check on rumors or viral claims?
As you become more familiar with news sources and information sites you can trust, "trade up" the topic to them. Then spend your time with a trusted source instead of trying to figure out if an unknown sources is credible and trustworthy.
Watch the following video to learn more:
Online Verification Skills- Video 4: Look for Trusted Work by CTRL-F is closed captioned and a transcript is available on YouTube. (approximately 4 minutes)
Add site: to your web search string, followed by your trusted source or URL. A search for Climate Change on a trusted site like Pew Research would look like this:
"climate change" site:pewresearch.org
I will only receive search results that are on my trusted site.
Most web content is not original. Get to the original source to understand the trustworthiness of the information. Also, trace any links within a source to confirm that the claims are consistent and from credible sources.
Watch the following video to learn more:
Online Verification Skills - Video 3 : Find the Original Source by CTRL-F is closed captioned and a transcript is available on YouTube. (1 minute, 34 seconds.)
Need to figure out if an image is credible? Do a reverse Image search using Google.
At some point in the past, you may have been told that .org websites can always be trusted, but I am here to tell you that is a myth you need to forget. Anyone can register for a .org domain, and bad actors can use the .org to promote a false sense of security and trustworthiness. This doesn't mean that all .org are untrustworthy either. You will still need to evaluate .org websites for credibility.
Government websites should be well sourced with documented evidence. .gov is the government website domain of the United States, and at times, you will also see a prefix for a specific state, like wa.gov for a Washington state government site. On Google, you can limit your results to only .gov sites by adding site:.gov to your search. Each country has a different secondary domain for their government sites, and here is a list of international government domain equivalents.
You'll need to use some critical thinking when using sources from .edu websites. Assess the audience for the information, is it intended for researchers, is it student work, or is it a published dissertation or theses, a research university department initiative? You can investigate the source/institution to learn more about what type of college or university it is to get a better idea about the suitability of the content for your assignment.
.coms have been villainized in the opposite way that .org may have been lauded. While anyone can use a .com domain, the best course of action is to investigate the source to see if they have a history of producing credible content. Many credible content producers have .com domain endings. As time goes on, more domain names are appearing, .tv, .info, .ly, etc. There is a whole list of these generic top level domains compiled on Wikipedia.
