World & Citizenship · Civics
When you land on a website you have never seen, the natural move is to read it carefully from top to bottom. Professional fact-checkers do the opposite. They leave the page almost at once and find out what the rest of the world says about it. Learn their habit here, then practice it on ten cases.
What the research found
Researchers at the Stanford History Education Group gave the same unfamiliar websites to professional fact-checkers, to historians and to college students. The fact-checkers judged the sites faster and more accurately. The difference was not intelligence. It was where they looked.
Reading down (vertical)
Reading the article, the About page, the logo and the design, and judging the site by how it presents itself. A site can make itself look like anything, so this is easy to fool.
Reading sideways (lateral)
Opening new tabs to search the site's name, its owner and its claim, and reading what independent sources say. A site cannot control what others write about it, so this is much harder to fool.
Research: Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew, Stanford History Education Group, "Lateral Reading: Reading Less and Learning More When Evaluating Digital Information." The free Civic Online Reasoning lessons are at cor.inquirygroup.org.
A routine you can run in a minute
Mike Caulfield, a researcher in digital literacy, turned the fact-checkers' habit into four moves anyone can remember.
S
Before you read further or share, notice your reaction. Do you know this source? A strong feeling, like anger, fear or delight, is a signal to slow down.
I
Open a new tab and search the name of the site or the person. Who runs it? What do independent sources say about it? Spend a minute, not an hour.
F
Search the claim itself. Do several independent, reliable sources report it? Often you can skip the doubtful page and read a better one on the same topic.
T
Follow quotes, numbers, photos and videos back to where they first appeared. Check that the original says what the post claims, in its full context.
One more habit
When you search, do not click the first result by reflex. Scan the whole first page of results, notice which ones are ads, and choose the result most likely to be independent.
A warning sign
"Share this before it gets deleted!" is a pressure tactic. True information is rarely in a hurry. When a post demands speed, that is the moment to stop.
SIFT: Mike Caulfield, "SIFT (The Four Moves)," hapgood.us, 2019.
Practice · Ten cases · Free · No login
Every site, person and claim below is made up for practice. For each case, choose the move a professional fact-checker would make.
Keep climbing
Not sure about something you read? Ask GENO, the free AI tutor in the corner of this page, to walk you through the four moves on it, in 83 languages.
Accreditation notice: Global Sovereign University is not an accredited institution and does not grant degrees, academic credit, licenses, or industry credentials. Learners who pass GSU's online exams earn GSU certificates of comprehension.