sift framework critical thinking

• SIFT & PICK Fact Checking & Source Evaluation A printable version of the SIFT & PICK approach to evaluating sources using lateral reading (SIFT) to fact check a source and vertical reading (PICK) to decide whether it is the best source for your needs.
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• Last Updated: Jan 10, 2024 2:15 PM
• URL: https://campusguides.lib.utah.edu/RADAR

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Determining "good" information from "bad" can get tricky sometimes. One way to decide what's what is to ask a librarian for help, or you can use SIFT, a set of 4 'moves' .

SIFT stands for:

• I nvestigate the source.
• F ind better or other sources.
• T race back to the original source to see quotes in their original context. 

The idea of  SIFT comes from Mike Caulfield  and is reused here under a Creative Commons license.

Here are some helpful websites:

• News Literacy Project NLP empowers educators to teach students the skills they need to be smart, active consumers of news and other information and engaged, informed participants in civic life. It also provides people of all ages with tools and resources that enable them to identify credible information and know what to trust, share and act on.
• SIFTing Through the Pandemic Mike Caulfield's blog about critically evaluating pandemic-related news and information. This site teaches a four-step process to use with coronavirus-related information that will show you “the skills that will make a dramatic difference in your ability to sort fact from fiction on the web (and everything in between).
• << Previous: Primary & Secondary Sources
• Next: Fake News >>
• Last Updated: Aug 6, 2024 2:08 PM
• URL: https://infoguides.southwestern.edu/hub

SIFT: Evaluating Sources Online: What is SIFT?

What is sift.

• Move 1: Stop
• Move 2: Investigate the Source
• Move 3: Find Better Coverage
• Move 4: Trace Back to Original Source
• Resources for Instructors

SIFT stands for

S TOP I NVESTIGATE THE SOURCE F IND TRUSTED COVERAGE T RACE BACK TO THE ORIGINAL

This is a quick and simple approach that can be applied to all sorts of sources, from scholarly articles to social media posts to memes, that will help you judge the quality of the information you're looking at. It gives you things to do,  specifically,  four moves you should make , whenever you find a piece of information you want to use or share.

SIFT was designed by Mike Caulfield, an expert in digital literacy, and based on research he and others have done in how people consume and think about media. 

SIFT is an additional set of skills to use alongside the "checklist" of evaluating sources you might have already learned. 

Here are some questions you might have already been taught to answer when you look at a website: 

• Is it a .com or .org?
• Are there spelling errors?
• Is the language scientific or technical?
• Does the source look professional?
• When was the source published?

However, in today's information ecosystem, these questions are not enough to determine whether or not you should use a source because: 

• .com and .org don't reflect the credibility or authority of the content of a webpage; 
• spellcheck is easy to use;
• scientific and technical language isn't an indicator of reliability;
• anyone can design or purchase a professional-looking website;
• depending on the topic, the publication date of the information may not matter.

SIFT Intro Video

Attribution

Note: This SIFT method guide was adapted from Michael Caulfield's "Check, Please!" course. The canonical version of this course exists at  http://lessons.checkplease.cc . The text and media of this site, where possible, is released into the CC-BY, and free for reuse and revision. We ask people copying this course to leave this note intact, so that students and teachers can find their way back to the original (periodically updated) version if necessary. We also ask librarians and reporters to consider linking to the canonical version.

As the authors of the original version have not reviewed any other copy's modifications, the text of any site not arrived at through the above link should not be sourced to the original authors.

• Next: Move 1: Stop >>
• Last Updated: Jun 30, 2024 6:52 PM
• URL: https://libguides.smsu.edu/SIFT

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91 Evaluating Sources Using the SIFT Model

One of the biggest challenges that writers face is finding credible sources. Mike Caulfield created the SIFT acronym to describe four moves that writers should make to evaluate their sources.

The first move is the simplest.  STOP  reminds you of two things.

First, when you first hit a page or post and start to read it — STOP. Ask yourself whether you know the website or source of the information, and what the reputation of both the claim and the website is. If you don’t have that information, use the other moves to get a sense of what you’re looking at. Don’t read it or share media until you know what it is.

Second, after you begin to use the other moves, it can be easy to go down a rabbit hole, going off on tangents only distantly related to your original task. If you feel yourself getting overwhelmed in your fact-checking efforts, STOP and take a second to remember your purpose. If you just want to repost, read an interesting story, or get a high-level explanation of a concept, it’s probably good enough to find out whether the publication is reputable. If you are planning to use the source in academic writing, it’s important to verify that the source and its information are credible. If you are doing deep research of your own, you may want to chase down individual claims in a newspaper article and independently verify them.

Please keep in mind that both sorts of investigations are equally useful. Quick and shallow investigations will form most of what we do on the web and can help you to quickly eliminate sources that are not high-quality. We get quicker with the simple stuff in part so we can spend more time on the stuff that matters to us. But in either case, stopping periodically and reevaluating our reaction or search strategy is key.

Investigate the Source

We’ll go into this move more on the next page. But the idea here is that you want to know what  you’re reading  before  you read it.

You don’t have to do a Pulitzer prize-winning investigation into a source before you engage with it. But if you’re reading a piece on economics by a Nobel prize-winning economist, you should know that before you read it. Conversely, if you’re watching a video on the many benefits of milk consumption that was put out by the dairy industry, you want to know that as well.

This doesn’t mean the Nobel economist will always be right and that the dairy industry can’t be trusted. But knowing the expertise and agenda of the source is crucial to your interpretation of what they say. Taking sixty seconds to figure out where media is from before reading will help you decide if it is worth your time, and if it is, help you to better understand its significance and trustworthiness.

Find Trusted Coverage

Sometimes you don’t care about the particular article or video that reaches you. You care about the  claim  the article is making. You want to know if it is true or false. You want to know if it represents a consensus viewpoint, or if it is the subject of much disagreement.

In this case, your best strategy may be to ignore the first source that reached you and look for trusted reporting or analysis on the claim. If you get an article that says koalas have just been declared extinct from the Save the Koalas Foundation, your best bet might not be to investigate the source, but to go out and find the best source you can on this topic, or, just as importantly, to scan multiple sources and see what the expert consensus seems to be. In these cases, you should “find other coverage” that better suits your needs — more trusted, more in-depth, or maybe just more varied.

Do you have to agree with the consensus once you find it? Absolutely not! But understanding the context and history of a claim will help you better evaluate it and form a starting point for future investigation.

Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media Back to the Original Context

Much of what we find on the internet has been stripped of context. Maybe there’s a video of a fight between two people with Person A as the aggressor. But what happened before the video that you see? What was clipped out of the video and what stayed in? Maybe there’s a picture that seems real, but the caption is misleading. Maybe a claim is made about a new medical treatment based on a research finding — but you’re not certain if the cited research paper really said what the article claims.

In these cases we’ll have you trace the claim, quote, or media back to the source, so you can see it in its original context and get a sense if the version you saw was accurately presented. Practicing this skill now is important. As you progress in academic writing, finding your sources’ sources will be an important part of your research.

It’s about REcontextualizing

There’s a theme that runs through all of these moves: they are about reconstructing the necessary context to read, view, or listen to digital content effectively.

One piece of context is who the speaker or publisher is. What’s their expertise? What’s their agenda? What’s their record of fairness or accuracy? This is why we investigate the source. Just as when you hear a rumor you want to know who the source is before reacting, when you encounter something on the web, you need the same sort of context.

When it comes to claims, a key piece of context includes whether those claims are broadly accepted, broadly rejected, or something in-between. By scanning for other coverage, you can see what the expert consensus is on a claim, learn the history around it, and ultimately land on a better source.

Finally, when evidence is presented with a certain frame — whether it’s a quote or a video or a scientific finding — sometimes it helps to reconstruct the original context in which the photo was taken or the research claim was made. The quote or finding can look quite different in context!

In some cases these techniques will show you claims are outright wrong, or that sources are legitimately “bad actors” who are trying to deceive you. But in the vast majority of cases, they do something just as important: they reestablish the context that the web so often strips away, allowing for more fruitful engagement with all digital information.

Adapted from  “SIFT: The Four Moves” by Mike Caulfield, https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves / This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Evaluating Sources Using the SIFT Model Copyright © 2020 by Liza Long; Amy Minervini; and Joel Gladd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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College & Research Libraries News  ( C&RL News ) is the official newsmagazine and publication of record of the Association of College & Research Libraries,  providing articles on the latest trends and practices affecting academic and research libraries.

C&RL News  became an online-only publication beginning with the January 2022 issue.

Allison I. Faix is instruction coordinator at Kimbel Library, Coastal Carolina University, email: [email protected] .

Amy F. Fyn is business librarian at Eastern Michigan University, email: [email protected] .

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Perspectives on the Framework

Allison I. Faix and Amy F. Fyn

Six frames, four moves, one habit

Finding ACRL’s Framework within SIFT

Allison I. Faix is instruction coordinator at Kimbel Library, Coastal Carolina University, email: [email protected] . Amy F. Fyn is business librarian at Eastern Michigan University, email: [email protected] .

© 2023 Allison I. Faix and Amy F. Fyn

T he SIFT method of source evaluation, proposed in 2017 by educational technologist Mike Caulfield, was designed as a “practical approach to quick source and claim investigation.” 1 At this time, academic librarians (including us) had already been questioning the effectiveness of popular source evaluation methods, especially checklist-based ones. Checklists seem too cursory and lack the flexibility and nuance needed to fully address the complex nature of internet sources. 2 The number of librarian-proposed updates to checklist methods of source evaluation has accelerated in recent years, 3 while SIFT has also emerged as a popular evaluation method with librarians. 4

Because of SIFT’s popularity, and because we ourselves are using SIFT, we wanted to look closely at SIFT through the lens of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. We believe there is value in using concepts from the entire Framework to best teach source evaluation. 5 It is important to identify overlap and gaps between the SIFT method and the ACRL Framework. Where does SIFT align with the evaluation expectations expressed within the Framework? What may academic librarians need to pair with SIFT lessons to better teach source evaluation? To answer our questions, we mapped the six frames of the ACRL Framework to the four moves and one habit of SIFT. Here, we introduce each move of SIFT, then connect it with relevant parts of the Framework. We also note where the Framework addresses source evaluation differently or in a more extended way than SIFT does, and what that might mean for librarians using SIFT in their classrooms.

SIFT: Four moves and a habit

Stop, Investigate, Find Better Coverage, and Trace Claims (SIFT) are separate yet related moves that fact-checkers may use to evaluate web sources. Embedded within these moves is a strategy known as lateral reading, which involves going outside of a source being evaluated and finding what others say about its reputation. Caulfield published an early version of SIFT, originally called “Four Moves and a Habit,” in Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers . This approach to examining web sources is intended to recontextualize a source by “reconstructing the necessary context to read, view, or listen to digital content effectively.” 6 The moves progressively delve deeper into a source, though not all sources will need the full treatment to determine the suitability of a source for a purpose. Caulfield updated and streamlined this into the SIFT method through a 2019 blog post and further refinements over time through lesson plans and other tools for teaching. 7 We used all these documentations of SIFT to draw the fullest picture of how SIFT works and is taught. We acknowledge that each move of SIFT, like each frame of the ACRL Framework, contains some overlap in concepts with the other moves.

The initial move in SIFT, Stop, directs “Don’t read or share media until you know what it is.” 8 To learn what you are looking at, pause and ask yourself what you already know. Are you familiar with the website or information source? What do you know about “the reputation of both the claim and the website”?Stop is also a reminder to keep an eye on your purpose. It gives permission to do a “quick and shallow” review of a source’s reputation for most situations unless the context of the research is for more academic or scientific purposes, in which case a deeper examination may be warranted. In Stop, students pause to decide whether they want to investigate their source further. If a fast evaluation doesn’t tell you enough for your purpose, you can continue to the next move.

The Stop move, though brief, connects to the frames Authority is Constructed and Contextual, Information Creation as a Process, Information has Value, Research as Inquiry, and Searching as Strategic Exploration. The first three frames acknowledge in varying ways that value (of information, of a source) changes based on context. 9 The Framework also addresses the need to keep a focus on your purpose, with both the Research as Inquiry and Searching as Strategic Exploration frame’s inclusion of determining and limiting the scope of an investigation. 10

Investigate the Source

If you aren’t familiar with a source or its reputation, Investigate the Source is the next move. Here, you start to answer the questions asked in Stop, seeking more information to understand the credentials, potential bias, and agenda of the authors, as well as the reputation of the authors and the source. Answering questions like, “Is the site or organization I am researching what I thought it was?” 11 is critical to investigation because SIFT emphasizes that “knowing the expertise and agenda of the source is crucial to your interpretation of what they say.” 12 This move also allows for context in its consideration of authority. Practical contextualized examples are found in Caulfield’s supplementary works. For instance, Caulfield notes that “a small local paper may be a great source for local news, but a lousy source for health advice or international politics.” 13 Caulfield also recommends using an investigative strategy called “Just add Wikipedia.” 14 In this version of lateral reading, students are asked to use Wikipedia to learn more about websites they found. Investigating who runs a website, why it exists, and its reputation helps determine the legitimacy of a site.

Two ACRL frames, Authority is Constructed and Contextual, along with Information Creation as a Process, are most relevant to this move. Authority is Constructed and Contextual states that “information resources reflect their creators’ expertise and credibility, and are evaluated based on the information need and the context in which the information will be used.” 15 Several knowledge practices from this frame address methods for evaluating authority, such as using relevant research tools and developing an understanding that authority can be based on many factors including subject expertise, social position, or personal experience. Librarians can help students imagine different kinds of expertise and experts depending on the context. Although this frame, by its very name, asks students to go further into analyzing the contextual nature of authority than the SIFT process does, both consider the importance of context in source evaluation.

The Information Creation as a Process frame notes the importance of additional aspects of investigating the quality of a source. This frame states that “elements that affect or reflect on the creation, such as a pre- or post-publication editing or review process, may be indicators of quality.” 16 However, the SIFT method does not ask students to look this deeply into a source. SIFT asks students to use lateral reading to determine more about the reputation of a source. During this move, students may encounter information about a source’s editorial processes, but they are not intentionally seeking that out. Even something as simple as identifying the type of source, be it a blog or an academic journal article preprint, may offer clues about the level of review the contents received.

This can be especially important at the beginning of a research project when students are judging how much (and what kind of) further research might be needed. Information Creation as Process emphasizes the importance of learning to “assess the fit between an information product’s creation process and a particular information need” and to “recognize that information may be perceived differently based on the format in which it is packaged.” 17 SIFT does not explicitly advocate for students to determine types of sources, so librarians may need to discuss this with students, especially because using specific types of sources is often required in academic work.

Find Better Coverage/Find Trusted Coverage

If students find a source with a claim they are interested in, but they are unconvinced of the trustworthiness of the source, they can search for a better source that makes a similar claim. In this move, students go beyond investigating a source to seek stronger or more trusted sources or to find general consensus about a topic or claim. Here they may also verify the accuracy of the claim or whether experts agree with it. In his original post about SIFT, Caulfield explains it like this: “You want to know if [a claim] is true or false. You want to know if it represents a consensus viewpoint, or if it is the subject of much disagreement.” 18 Gaining a sense of what experts in the field think about their topic helps students better judge if the source is an outlier to those expert views. Additional perspectives also help put sources into context. In both this move and the ACRL Framework, students are encouraged to develop an informed skepticism about the sources they locate and to strive to find the best possible sources for their research needs.

Finding better or trusted coverage connects with every ACRL frame. Assertions about the trustworthiness of a source align with the Authority is Constructed and Contextual frame’s focus on “creators’ expertise and credibility.” 19 The Information Creation as a Process and Information has Value frames are linked with the need to understand that the way information is created influences its credibility and value. The Research as Inquiry frame indicates that skilled researchers exhibit dispositions of “maintain[ing] an open mind and a critical stance” and “seek[ing] multiple perspectives during information gathering and assessment.” 20 Scholarship as Conversation also speaks of the need to understand that “a query may not have a single uncontested answer. Experts . . . seek out many perspectives.” 21 Librarians may want to discuss with students that there may not be a clear consensus among experts, and that is part of the ongoing academic conversation. Finally, the Searching as Strategic Exploration frame says that information-literate learners “realize that information sources vary greatly in content and format and have varying relevance and value.” 22 The Framework encourages students to fully explore the information available to them, rather than sticking with the first source they find. While SIFT focuses students’ attention on finding better sources, the Framework has much more to say about how to actually do this. Librarians can teach students search strategies to help them locate better sources.

Trace Claims

The Trace Claims move says to evaluate sources by following quotes, claims, or media back to their original context and to check if text, images, videos, or sound recordings have been altered from the original format. Especially with internet sources, it’s possible that a source has evolved from an original post or story into something that has been “altered so much that it presents a radically wrong version of an event or a piece of research.” 23 Finding the original source allows students to recontextualize information and determine if a source remained true to the context or was misrepresented. Reading quotations within their original context may help students understand why the authors chose to use those quotations, and if the authors understood the quotations in the same way. Each of these considerations make a difference in deciding if a source is trustworthy.

The need to trace claims is closely connected to multiple frames. Context is especially important in the Authority is Constructed and Contextual frame, which states learners should “ask relevant questions about origins, context, and suitability for the current information need.” 24 The Information has Value frame encourages respect for the original ideas of others, stressing that learners “value the skills, time and effort needed to produce knowledge.” 25 Scholarship as Conversation asserts that learners “critically evaluate contributions made by others in participatory information environments.” 26 This frame engages more deeply with the need to respect the work of others than SIFT does, primarily by showing how writing practices that value citing other experts enable scholars to have conversations with one another.

The affective dimensions of the researcher are considered within SIFT as the “habit” introduced in Web Strategies for Fact-Checkers (“Four moves and a habit”). 27 When a source provokes strong emotion, whether positive or negative, check in with your emotions to see if they are influencing your evaluation. Caulfield references research that describes how an emotional response to information can activate your confirmation bias, that “our normal inclination is to ignore verification needs when we react strongly to content.” 28 People often assume that information we agree with is correct and information we disagree with is incorrect. Students need to learn to override this tendency or at least examine it closely before using information.

One frame directly references effect, and this dimension is also addressed within each frame’s dispositions. Searching as Strategic Exploration acknowledges that “information searching is a contextualized, complex experience that affects, and is affected by, the cognitive, affective, and social dimensions of the searcher.” 30 Authority is Constructed and Contextual’s dispositions refer to managing bias, noting the need for qualities including open-mindedness, self-awareness, and recognition of the value of diversity in worldviews. These dispositions are reiterated throughout the framework. Awareness of these often-personal dimensions is important to both source evaluation and conducting research itself.

Both SIFT and the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education are used by librarians to support source evaluation, the first as a strategy to teach to students, and the second as a set of underpinning concepts that supports the foundation of lesson plans and information literacy instruction as a whole. Looking at SIFT through the broadest lens possible, it’s clear that some frames are much more evident than others. The Framework’s concepts, practices, and dispositions that focus on evaluating sources rather than finding or creating them are more prevalent within SIFT. It’s worth noting that SIFT was developed as a quick way to evaluate internet sources, while academic librarians are teaching students to find and evaluate a wider variety of sources.

Overall, the SIFT method at least scratches the surface of all the ACRL frames, making SIFT a more robust method for teaching source evaluation than others we have seen. Librarians can incorporate concepts that are less prominent in SIFT, such as the importance of information-creation processes and developing good strategies for locating better sources—in other ways and at other moments—as we extend our instruction to help students not only evaluate but also use their sources well.

• Mike Caulfield, “About,” Hapgood, n.d., https://hapgood.us/about/ .
• Marc Meola, “Chucking the Checklist: A Contextual Approach to Teaching Undergraduates Web-Site Evaluation,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 4, no. 3 (2004): 331–44, https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2004.0055 .
• See Alaina C. Bull, Margy MacMillan, and Alison J. Head, “Dismantling the Evaluation Framework,” In the Library with the Lead Pipe (July 21, 2021), https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2021/dismantling-evaluation/ ; Anthony Bernard Tardiff, “Have a CCOW: A CRAAP Alternative for the Internet Age,” Journal of Information Literacy 16, no. 1 (2022): 119; Grace Liu, “Moving up the Ladder of Source Assessment: Expanding the CRAAP Test with Critical Thinking and Metacognition,” College & Research Libraries News 82, no. 2 (2021): 75; and M. Sara Lowe, Katharine V. Macy, Emily Murphy, and Justin Kan, “Questioning CRAAP: A Comparison of Source Evaluation Methods with First-Year Undergraduate Students,” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 21, no. 3 (2021): 33.
• David Sye and Dana Statton Thompson, “Tools, Tests, and Checklists: The Evolution and Future of Source Evaluation Frameworks,” Journal of New Librarianship 8 (2023): 76.
• Allison Faix and Amy F. Fyn, “Framing Fake News: Misinformation and the ACRL Framework,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 20, no. 3 (2020): 495–508, https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2020.0027 .
• Mike Caulfield, “SIFT (The Four Moves),” Hapgood , June 19, 2019, https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/ .
• Mike Caulfield, “Updated Resources for 2021,” in Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers . . . and Other People Who Care About Facts (Montreal: Pressbooks, 2017), https://pressbooks.pub/webliteracy/front-matter/updated-resources-for-2021/ .
• Caulfield, “SIFT (The Four Moves).”
• ACRL, “Framework.”
• ACRL, “Framework,” 18.
• Mike Caulfield, “Check, Please! Starter Course: Lesson Two: Investigate the Source,” Notion.so , n.d., https://checkpleasecc.notion.site/Lesson-Two-Investigate-the-Source-dc0ab0dc7c394df9bcab6ffdb4edf626 .
• Caulfield, “Check, Please!”
• Mike Caulfield, “Just Add Wikipedia,” Sifting through the Pandemic: Information Hygiene for the Covid-19 Pandemic (blog), February 17, 2020, https://infodemic.blog/2020/02/17/just-add-wikipedia/ .
• ACRL, “Framework,” 12.
• ACRL, “Framework,” 14.
• ACRL, “Framework,” 19.
• ACRL, “Framework,” 20.
• ACRL, “Framework,” 23.
• ACRL, “Framework,” 17.
• Mike Caulfield, “Building a Fact-Checking Habit by Checking Your Emotions,” in Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers . . . and Other People Who Care About Facts (Montreal: Pressbooks, 2017), https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/ .
• Caulfield, Web Literacy, 3.
• ACRL, “Framework,” 22.

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Information Evaluation: What is the SIFT Method?

• Scholarly vs. Popular
• Primary vs. Secondary

What is the SIFT Method?

• Move One: Stop
• Move Two: Investigate the Source
• Move Three: Find Better Coverage
• Move Four: Trace Claims, Quotes and Media to Their Original Context
• Fakeout! (interactive game)
• Bias vs. Agenda
• Fake News This link opens in a new window
• Audio/Visual Media
• Information Timeline
• Game: Fakeout!

The SIFT Method is a series of actions one can take in order to determine the validity and reliability of claims and sources on the web. Each letter in “SIFT” corresponds to one of the “Four Moves":

When practiced, SIFT reveals the necessary context to read, view, or listen effectively before reading an article or other information online.

We learn about the author, speaker, or publisher: What’s their expertise? Their agenda? Their record of fairness or accuracy? We check on claims: Are they broadly accepted? Rejected? Something in-between? We don’t take evidence at face value. Is it presented in its original context, or with a certain frame that changes its meaning for the reader or viewer?

Listen to Mike Caulfield, the man who created the SIFT Method, in the short video below (1:30) as he explains why developing our online evaluation skills are more important now than ever before:

Keep reading as we work our way through each of the Four Moves in detail. Click here to start with Move One, or, use the buttons at the bottom of this guide to move ahead.

Acknowledgement

The SIFT Method portion of this guide was adapted from "Check, Please!" (Caulfield). The canonical version of Check, Please! exists at http://lessons.checkplease.cc  (CC-BY).  As the authors of the original version have not reviewed any other copy's modifications, the text of any site not arrived at through the above link should not be sourced to the original authors. 

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• Next: Move One: Stop >>
• Last Updated: Mar 15, 2024 9:53 AM
• URL: https://lib.lavc.edu/information-evaluation

The SIFT Method

Navigating digital information.

Now that we’re in our fact-checking frame of mind, let’s start thinking about why fact-checking is an important part of your daily information practices. Watch and consider the following video and then learn more fact-checking strategies used by experts!

SIFT Your sources

Just a reminder to practice our new fact-checking habit! Get an emotional response? Take a moment to stop, a sk yourself whether you know and trust the author, publisher, publication, or website. If you don’t, use the other fact-checking moves that follow, to get a better sense of what you’re looking at.

Investigate the Source

When investigating a source, fact-checkers read “laterally” across many websites. That is, they don’t spend much time on the source itself, but instead they quickly  get off the page  and see what others have said about the source. They open up many tabs in their browser, piecing together different bits of information from across the web to get a better picture of the source they’re investigating. You don’t have to do a three-hour investigation into a source before you engage with it. But if you’re reading a piece on economics, and the author is a Nobel prize-winning economist, that would be useful information. Likewise, if you’re watching a video on the many benefits of milk consumption, you would want to be aware if the video was produced by the dairy industry. This doesn’t mean the Nobel economist will always be right and that the dairy industry can’t ever be trusted. But knowing the expertise and agenda of the person who created the source is crucial to your interpretation of the information provided.

Watch and consider the following video to learn how to get a consensus on sources and how Wikipedia is helpful for this strategy.

Find Better Coverage

Your best strategy in this case might actually be to find a better source altogether , to look for  other coverage  that includes trusted reporting or analysis on that same claim. Rather than relying on the source that you initially found, you can trade up for a higher quality source. What if the source you find is low-quality, or you can’t determine if it is reliable or not? Perhaps  you don’t really care about the source—you care about the claim that source is making. You want to know if it is true or false. You want to know if it represents a consensus viewpoint, or if it is the subject of much disagreement. A common example of this is a meme you might encounter on social media. The random person or group who posted the meme may be less important than the quote or claim the meme makes.

The point is that you’re not wedded to using that initial source. We have the internet! You can go out and find a better source, and invest your time there.

Watch and consider the following video demonstrating this strategy, noting how fact-checkers build a library of trusted sources they can rely on quickly.

Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media to the Original Context

Much of what we find on the internet has been stripped of context. Maybe there’s a video of a fight between two people with one person acting as the aggressor. But what happened before that? What was clipped out of the video and what stayed in? Maybe there’s a picture that seems real but the caption could be misleading. Maybe a claim is made about a new medical treatment based on a research finding—but you’re not certain if the cited research paper actually said that.

The people who re-report these stories either get things wrong by mistake, or, in some cases, they are intentionally misleading us. In these cases you will want to trace the claim, quote, or media back to the source, so you can see it in its original context and get a sense of whether the version you saw was accurately presented. 

This chapter was adapted from the following:

Introduction to college research by walter d. butler, aloha sargent, and kelsey smith, licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license..

Introduction to Finding Information Copyright © by Kirsten Hostetler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The 'Sift' strategy: A four-step method for spotting misinformation

Pioneered by digital literacy experts, the "Sift" strategy is a technique for spotting fake news and misleading social media posts, says Amanda Ruggeri.

It's no secret that misinformation is rampant on social media. And it's even more so in some subjects than others. Research has found, for example, that around two-thirds of the most popular YouTube videos on vaccines contain misinformation. The fall-out can be dire: an uptick in inaccurate anti-vaccination content online correlates with a decline in vaccination coverage , especially among children. That has led to larger outbreaks of potentially deadly diseases, like measles, than have been seen in recent years .

"Misinformation is worse than an epidemic," Marcia McNutt, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, put it in 2021 , implicitly referring to the Covid-19 pandemic. "It spreads at the speed of light throughout the globe and can prove deadly when it reinforces misplaced personal bias against all trustworthy evidence."

HOW NOT TO BE MANIPULATED

In today's onslaught of overwhelming information (and misinformation), it can be difficult to know who to trust. In  this column , Amanda Ruggeri explores smart, thoughtful ways to navigate the noise. Drawing on insights from psychology, social science and media literacy, it offers practical advice, new ideas and evidence-based solutions for how to be a wiser, more discerning critical thinker.

There are many reasons why misinformation travels so quickly – according to some research, even faster than accurate information. One reason is that people are far more likely to share a claim when it confirms their pre-existing beliefs , regardless of its accuracy. This cognitive bias may help explain why even more misinformation seems to be shared by individuals than by bots . One study, for example, found that just 15% of news sharers spread up to 40% of fake news .

That's a sobering statistic, but there's an upside. As long as individuals are the ones responsible for sharing so much misinformation, we're also the ones who – by being more mindful of what we "like", share, and amplify – can help make the greatest change.

When it comes to not falling for misinformation, being aware of our human fallibilities, such as our quickness to believe what we want to believe, is a good first step. Research shows that even being more reflective in general can "inoculate" us against believing fake news.

But it's not the only thing that we can do. In particular, researchers have found there are several simple, concrete strategies that we all can (and should) use, especially before we're tempted to share or repeat a claim, to verify its accuracy first.

One of my favourites comes with a nifty acronym: the Sift method . Pioneered by digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield, it breaks down into four easy-to-remember steps.

1. S is for… Stop

Perhaps one of the most pernicious aspects of the modern era is its urgency. Thanks to everything from our continual phone use to nonstop work demands, far too many of us seem to be navigating the world at a dizzying speed.

Being online, where both news cycles and content are especially fast-paced and often emotive, can put us in a particularly "urgent" mindset. But when it comes to identifying misinformation, immediacy is not our friend. Research has found that relying on our immediate "gut" reactions is more likely to lead us astray than if we take a moment to stop and reflect . 

The first step of the Sift method interrupts this tendency. Stop. Don't share the post. Don't comment on it. And move on to the next step.

2. I is for… Investigate the source

Posts show up in our social media feeds all the time without us having a clear sense of who created them. Maybe they were shared by a friend. Maybe they were pushed to us by the algorithm. Maybe we followed the creator intentionally, but never looked into their background.

Now's the time to find this out. Who created this post? Get off-platform and do a web search. And because search results can be misleading, make sure you're looking at a reputable website. One that fact-checkers often use as a first port of call might surprise you: Wikipedia. While it's not perfect, it has the benefit of being crowd-sourced, which means that its articles about specific well-known people or organisations often cover aspects like controversies and political biases.

While you're investigating, ask:

• If the creator is a media outlet, are they reputable and respected, with a recognised commitment to verified, independent journalism?
• If it's an individual, what expertise do they have in the subject at hand (if any)? What financial ties, political leanings or personal biases may be at play?
• If it's an organisation or a business, what is their purpose? What do they advocate for, or sell? Where does their funding come from? What political leanings have they shown?

And finally, once you've run your analysis (which can take just a couple of minutes), the most telling question of all: Would you still trust this creator's expertise in this subject if they were saying something you disagreed with?

3. F is for… Find better coverage

If, from the previous step, you find that you still have questions about the source's credibility, now's the time to dig a little further. What you're looking for is whether a more trustworthy source, like a reputable news outlet or fact-checking service, has reported and verified the same claim.

No surprise, but I find Google has some of the best tools for doing this. Obviously, there's Google itself, and if you're specifically looking to see if news outlets have covered something, Google News .

But I sometimes prefer to use the Google Fact Check search engine, which searches just fact-checking sites, specifically. Just keep in mind that Google says it doesn't vet the fact-checking sites it includes, so to make sure your results are reputable, you'll need to do a little further sleuthing – I like to see if an outlet has signed up to Poynter's International Fact-Checking Network, which you can check here .

If it's a photo you're investigating, use a reverse image search tool to see where else the image comes up online. Google has one , but I also like TinEye and Yandex . (You can also use these for video: take a screenshot from the video and put that in for your image search).

Your goal? To see whether there are any credible sources reporting the same information as what you're seeing, and saying that it's verified.

4. T is for… Trace the claim to its original context

Often, you'll wind up doing this at the same time that you're trying to find better coverage, at least if you're using the tools mentioned above. But the idea here is a little different. You're trying to find out where the claim came from originally.

Even if you see that a claim has been reported on by a credible media outlet, for example, it may not be original reporting; they may have gotten that claim from another outlet. Ideally, the original story should be linked – so always go there – but if it's not, you may need to search for it separately.

Crucially, you want to figure out not just whether something like this really is true, but whether anything was taken out of context. If you're looking at an image, does how it was described in the social media post you saw line up with what its original caption, context, and location? If it's a quotation from a speaker, was anything edited out or taken out of context or, when you see their full interview or speech, does it seem like perhaps they misspoke in that moment?

Taking these steps before deciding whether to simply share a claim might feel onerous. But the time investment of just a few minutes may save you not only embarrassment – but help ensure you're not spreading misinformation that, at its most dramatic, can even lead to illness and death.

Today, anyone can make a claim on social media. And anyone can be the person whose re-sharing of that claim is the one who makes it go viral. That means it's the responsibility of each one of us to make sure that what we are posting, liking, and sharing is, first and foremost, actually true.

*Amanda Ruggeri is an award-winning science and features journalist. She posts about expertise, media literacy and more on Instagram at  @mandyruggeri .

If you liked this story,  sign up for The Essential List newsletter  – a handpicked selection of features, videos and can't-miss news, delivered to your inbox twice a week. 

A multiple mediation model of thinking style, student assessors’ online assessment performance, and critical thinking in online assessment environment

• Published: 13 September 2024

Cite this article

• Chi-Cheng Chang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1558-1111 1 &
• Kuang-Hsiung Huang 1  

This study adopted a framework based on social cognitive theory to explore the influence of thinking styles on critical thinking and multiple mediation effects of student assessors’ assessment performance (scoring and review comments) between them. Samples were 97 graduate students enrolled in the “Seminar” course at a university. Students used an online assessment system and the evaluation form to conduct peer assessments for peers’ reports. Findings revealed: (1) thinking styles primarily had an indirect effect on critical thinking solely through comment performance (complete mediation effect), and it indirectly influenced critical thinking serially through scoring performance and comment performance (completely serial mediation effect), but it cannot solely influence critical thinking through scoring performance. (2) thinking styles directly influenced both scoring and comment performance, and also indirectly affected comment performance through scoring performance (partial mediation effect). (3) scoring performance indirectly influenced critical thinking through comment performance (complete mediation effect), while comment performance directly influenced critical thinking. (4) scoring performance directly influenced comment performance. The main contribution of this study lies in proposing and validating a multiple mediation model of “Thinking Style-Online Assessment Performance-Critical Thinking”, indicating that student assessors’ online assessment performance (scoring and comment performance) has multiple mediation effects between thinking styles and critical thinking. This result holds significant academic and practical implications.

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Chi-Cheng Chang made substantial contributions to conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, data analysis and interpretation, project administration, resources, supervision, validation, writing—original draft and critical revision, writing—review & editing.

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Chang, CC., Huang, KH. A multiple mediation model of thinking style, student assessors’ online assessment performance, and critical thinking in online assessment environment. Educ Inf Technol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-13044-9

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-13044-9

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