One Gut Check and Four Steps Students Can Apply to Fact-Check Information

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/49580/one-gut-check-and-four-steps-students-can-apply-to-fact-check-information   Anya Kamenetz  Oct 31, 2017

Stanford University report found that more than 80 percent of middle schoolers didn’t understand that the phrase “sponsored content” meant “advertising.”

1. Check for previous work: Look around to see if someone else has already fact-checked the claim or provided a synthesis of research. [Some places to look: Wikipedia, Snopes, Politifact and NPR’s own Fact Check website.]
2. Go upstream to the source: Most web content is not original. Get to the original source to understand the trustworthiness of the information. Is it a reputable scientific journal? Is there an original news media account from a well-known outlet? If that’s not immediately apparent, then move to step 3.
3. Read laterally: Once you get to the source of a claim, read what other people say about the source (publication, author, etc.). The truth is in the network.
4. Circle back: If you get lost, or hit dead ends or find yourself going down a rabbit hole, back up and start over.

Caulfield is also the director of the Digital Polarization Initiative of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities‘s American Democracy Project. Starting this spring, the initiative will bring at least 10 universities together to promote web literacy.

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more on fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news