Library: Political Science 230 International Relations: Evaluating Sources

Tips for Fact Checking

When you open up a news article in your browser, open a second, empty tab. Use that second window to look up claims, author credentials and organizations that you come across in the article.
Misinformation/misleading information spans across all kinds of media - printed and online articles, podcasts, YouTube videos, radio shows, and images.
Even the best researchers will be fooled once in a while. If you find yourself fooled by misinformation, use your experience as a learning tool.

Fact Checking Links

Factcheck.org
A product of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, this site is terrific for checking up on political claims.
Politifact
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact researches the claims of politicians and checks their accuracy.
Snopes
The internet’s go-to source for discerning what is true and what is total nonsense.
The Washington Post Fact Checker
The Truth Behind The Rhetoric
9 tools to identify fake images and videos
News Co/Lab is a nonprofit organization working to advance media literacy through media, education and technology at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
AllSides: Don't be fooled by media bias & misinformation
AllSides is a website that rates the bias of news stories and other articles, labeling them according to where they fit on a political spectrum from left to center to right.
Poynter Fact Checking
The Poynter Institute develops resources for journalists and writers, plus offers resources on fact checking and media literacy for the general public.
Hoaxy2
Visualize the spread of information on social media
Checklist for Evaluating Sources - The MLA Style Center
Opens as a PDF document.
"How to Tell Good Research From Bad: 13 Questions Journalists Should Ask." Journalist's Resource,
"Platform Health Metrics: Iffy Quotient." The University of Michigan School of Information for Social Media Responsibility,

Investigate the author/producer - Lateral Reading

Searching for information about the author or organization responsible for the website, article, or book is an excellent way of evaluating sources. This method is called lateral reading.

Google the author or organization responsible for posting the information.
Search the author/organization in the library's OneSearch box.

The Civic Online Reasoning Institute at Stanford University has an excellent explanation of Lateral Reading in "Sort Fact from Fiction Online with Lateral Reading." The video is under four minutes. The University of Louisville Libraries also has this useful handout about lateral reading.

Evaluating Sources

Carefully evaluate all information, whether from a book, article, or website, by asking the following questions:

Who? Who is the author of this source?
- Are they qualified to write/speak on the subject?
- Do you detect any bias on the author’s part in relation to the subject?
What? What is the source?
- Does it have a title?
- Is it a primary source, such as an original document or creative work or is it a secondary source, such as a report or analysis of primary sources?
- Is it authoritative or trustworthy?
How?
- How was the source produced?
- Who is the publisher or sponsoring organization?
Where did you find the source?
- Was it through a library’s databases or through an internet search engine that may list results in a biased or weighted manner?
When was the source published?
- Has it been replaced or updated?

MLA Handbook. 8th ed., The Modern Language Association, 2016, pp. 11-12.

MLA also provides a great checklist for evaluating sources.

Contact the Library

Jane Lewandoski

Email Me

Contact:

Phone (810) 989-5640
Text (810) 515-7343
library@sc4.edu