"It’s become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity." Did Albert Einstein think this way about technology and people?
If you have news, memes, or a hot button topic you want to know more about, below are questions to ask yourself and strategies to try while investigating what is true, false, or somewhere in between. One strategy will work better than the others depending on your topic. Finding more than one source will strengthen your case. Good luck!
STOP! Do you know if the website or source you are using is reputable? [Click on your answer]
Yes, the website and source is reliable!
Great! Continue reading and sharing it. It is always good to double check your resource. Continuing with this guide will help you track down more if your information is reliable.
Yes, my friend/family sent it to me.
Sometimes your friends or family don't know where the information is coming from. Use these guide to see if the information they shared is reliable information and let them know what you discovered.
You have come to the right place! This guide helps you find ways to double check your information is reliable.
INVESTIGATE the source, who created it, and where the facts came from.
FIND sources you can trust! Compare the information you have with other credible sources and see what other sources say others say about your source.
TRACE claims, quotes, and media presented back to the original context.
Below are Strategies You Can Utilize while You Investigate, Find & Trace.
1. Whether it is a website, an image, or just a quote someone posted, find answers to as many of the below questions as you can!
2. Here is a list of fact-checking websites. See what others have uncovered about your image, information or article.
3. Here are three tips to use in a search engine like Google more efficiently.
a. Include "site:" to your search. This searches your keywords (ex. Albert Einstein technology humanity) through websites you are interested in. Note, delete http://, www., and any content after your core URL including the / .
Tip: A colon symbol is after the word "site" in the search.
b. Search what other people are saying about something. Exclude a main website from your search so different websites populate your results. Include "-site:" to your search will exclude a certain website.
c. Search for more reliable sites. Websites ending with .edu are educational sites, .org are organizations, .gov are government websites. Using "site:" will filter what populates in your results. Note: Anyone can purchase an .org website, check what organization owns the site.
4. Like Einstein's quote, memes usually have text with it. Search the quote and see if a website, video or blog has spoken about it. You can also describe the image in keywords.
Tip: Putting quotation marks around two or more words searches them as an exact phrase. Do this when you want the words next to each other in the exact order.
Find the most reliable source from the results. For example, a newspaper or college website would be more reliable than a blog post.
5. Do a reverse image lookup by right clicking an image you have found through the Google Chrome browser. Then click on "Search with Google Lens" (From your phone, click and hold an image. Then click "Search inside image").
A sidebar will pop up with image and website results. Find a reliable source from the list or "Add to your search" to find the earliest occurrence of the image on the internet. Pick a date by year, month and date and write before: in front of it. before:YYYY-MM-DD.
For example:
before:2020-01-01
6. Good library databases to use while investigating your fake news, memes and hot button topics.
Note, use your Lobo Apps Username & Password to get access to these databases.
To learn more about strategies on evaluating resources, my sources for this guide were:
Caulfield, M. A. (n.d.). Web literacy for student fact checkers. Retrieved from https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com
Caulfield, M. A. (2019, June 19). SIFT (The four moves). HAPGOOD. Retrieved from https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves
Meriam Library. (2010). Evaluating information: Applying the CRAAP test. Retrieved from https://library.csuchico.edu/sites/default/files/craap-test.pdf