How Tos

When choosing books, articles, websites, and other sources to use for your research, evaluate them to determine whether and how to use them. 

Currency

The timeliness of the information:

• When was the information published or posted?
• Does the time period that the information was published matter in relation to your topic?
• When was the information last revised? (online often found in the footer area of websites)
• If reviewing a web source, are the links current or are they broken?

Relevance or Coverage

The importance of the information in relation to your topic:

• What is the depth of coverage?
• Is the information provided central to your topic or does the source just touch upon your topic?
• Is the information unique?
• Who is the intended audience?
• Basically, is the information at the appropriate level for your research or does it target a different type of audience?
• Is better information available in another source?

Authority Consider the source:

Can you tell who wrote it?

• If the author is not identified who is the sponsor, publisher, or organization behind the information?
• Are the author’s credentials or organizational affiliations listed?
• Is contact information available?
• Is the source reputable?

Accuracy

The reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the informational content:

Where does the information presented come from?

• Are the sources listed?
• Are the sources reputable?
• Can you verify the information in other sources or from your own knowledge? Corroborate!
• Does the language or tone seem free of bias or ideologically based arguments?

Point-of-View

The reason the information exists:

• What is the purpose of the information? Inform? Teach? Sway opinion? Sell? Entertain?
• Can you determine possible bias?
• If you can are they clearly stated or do they become apparent through a close reading?
• Does the point of view appear objective?
• Does the site provide information or does it attempt to debunk other information? (Weighing positive evidence versus negative evidence)

Wikipedia is a tool that can be useful for your research as long as you understand how to use it and its limitations. 

Limitations

1. It is an encyclopedia, which is a reference source, and is meant to provide you with background information so that you can move on and find more in-depth information (usually in articles or books). You should not be citing encyclopedias in your papers, but rather getting your information from articles, books, and other sources with in-depth information.
2. It is edited by a community that is not diverse (over 90% male and primarily from North America) and so key perspectives may be missing. See this article: Boboltz, S. (2017, December 6). Editors are trying to fix Wikipedia’s gender and racial bias problem. Huffington Post. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikipedia-gender-racial-bias_n_7054550
3. It’s edited by a community and so relevant information or key sources may be missing or incorrect.

• For example, the Wikipedia page on witch hunts, as of January 24, 2020, presented the topic as if it were a gender neutral issue, without mention of sexism. In contrast, Forbes (2015) does discuss gender as an aspect of witch hunts on pages 125-126 of a chapter entitled 'Black Death and Witch Hunts" in America's Favorite Holidays: Candid Histories, a reference book available through Pacific University Libraries. This is an example of an important aspect of a topic being omitted, without which, the issue really can't be understood.
  • Forbes, B.D. (2015). Black death and witch hunts. In America's Favorite Holidays: Candid Histories. University of California Press. https://alliance-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/gib57b/TN_cdi_credo_entries_22604669  
  • Wikipedia. (2020, January 24). Witch-hunt. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt 

What is it useful for?

1. Background information (vocabulary and key ideas about a topic) as long as you understand the limitations above and then go on to consult more credible and in-depth sources.
2. Finding links to other sources as long as you understand that links to relevant sources may be missing and also search the Web and the Library for other relevant and credible sources.

8 Tips for Recognizing Fake News

1. Consider the Source: Click away from the story to investigate the site, its mission and its contact info.

2. Check the Author: Do a quick search on the author. Are they credible? Are they real? 

3. Read Beyond: Headlines can be outrageous in an effort to get clicks. What’s the whole story?

4. Check the Date: Reposting old news stories doesn’t mean they’re relevant to current events.

5. Check Your Biases: Consider if your own beliefs could affect your judgment. 

6. Supporting Sources: Click on those links. Determine if the info given actually supports the story.

7. Is It a Joke?: If it is too outlandish, it might be satire. Research the site and author to be sure.

8. Ask the Experts: Ask a librarian, or consult a fact-checking site. 

What to Believe? Social Media Commentary and Belief in Misinformation

Anspach, N. M., & Carlson, T. N. (2018). What to Believe? Social media commentary and belief in misinformation. Political Behavior, 42(3), 697–718. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-018-9515-z  

Quick Summary: 

Get your news from credible journalistic sources instead of social media. Any sources that you do see on social media, ignore the comments and headlines -- click through and read the source itself and any sources it cites. 

Abstract:

Americans are increasingly turning to social media for political information. However, given that the average social media user only clicks through on a small fraction of the political content available, the brief article previews that appear in the News Feed likely serve as shortcuts to political information. Yet, in addition to sharing political news, social media also allow users to make their own comments on news posts, comments which may challenge or distort the information contained in the articles. In this paper, we first analyze how social media posts on Twitter and Facebook differ from the actual content of their linked news articles, finding that social media comments regularly misrepresent the facts reported in the news. We then use a survey experiment to test the consequences of these information discrepancies. Specifically, we randomly assign individuals to read a full news article, a news article preview post (as seen on Facebook), or a news article preview with misinformative social commentary attached. We find that individuals in the social commentary conditions are more misinformed about the featured topic, tending to report the factually-incorrect information relayed in the comments rather than the factually-correct information embedded within the article preview.

Web Tools for Recognizing Fake News