Evaluating for Credibility: Using SIFT and Lateral Reading

Once you have determined that a source is relevant and current, it is very important to evaluate it for credibility. Can you trust that source?

Mike Caulfield, a Washington State University digital literacy expert, has helpfully condensed key fact-checking strategies into the SIFT Method to help you quickly decide whether or not a source is worthy of your attention.

Remember, you are only checking the credibility of these sources, not whether you will use them. You’ll end up identifying trustworthy sources you can safely use, not with a list you will use. (Help for figuring out which you will use is in Chapter 14 Reflecting with BEAM.) As you practice the SIFT Method, you will get faster the more you do it.

Your mental attitude should be skeptical—make the sources prove to you that they are credible.

Stop

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

1. When you hit a page and start reading it, STOP. Ask yourself whether you know and trust the website, author, publisher, or publication. If you don’t, use the other SIFT moves to understand what you’re looking at. Only read it or share it once you know what it is and can verify that it is reliable.
2. After you begin the process and use the moves, it can be too easy to go down a rabbit hole, chasing after more and more obscure facts or getting lost in a “click cycle.” If you feel yourself getting overwhelmed in your fact-checking efforts, STOP and take a second to remind yourself what your goal is. Adjust your strategy if it isn’t working. Ensure you approach the problem at the right depth for your purpose.

Investigate the Source by Reading Laterally

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 dairy industry produced the video. This doesn’t mean the Nobel economist will always be right and the dairy industry can never be trusted. However, knowing the expertise and agenda of the person who created the source is crucial to your interpretation of the information provided.

You may have looked deeper into a source to evaluate it in the past, looking at a site’s About Me section or domain (.com, .edu, etc.). This type of evaluation is reading a site “vertically.” However, “lateral reading” is recommended to learn more about a source and what others say about it, its author, and its publisher, so that you are not just accepting what sources say about themselves.

When investigating a source, professional fact-checkers read laterally across many websites rather than digging deep (reading vertically) into the one source they are evaluating. 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 it. They open up many tabs in their browser, piecing together different bits of information from across the web to better understand the source they’re investigating.

Strategies for Lateral Reading

As you try the strategies below, take brief notes on what you find out to build a context for inferring whether the source is credible. A best practice is to have the source in one tab, window, or print, and use other tabs and windows to look at what others say about it.

• Determine what type of source it is.

In general, substantive popular sources, professional trade sources, and scholarly sources are more credible than popular sources. That’s because creating these kinds of sources often involves processes that help ensure their accuracy. For instance, major U.S. newspapers correct previously published information every day or week, and research journals retract journal articles whose inaccuracies become apparent. You still need to evaluate them, but it tends to be easier. (To review kinds of sources, see Chapter 4, Types of Information.)  Ask yourself whether the source is:

• • a popular source for everyone
  • a substantive popular source created for educated people or those very interested in the subject
  •  a professional source created for members of a particular profession,
  •  a scholarly source aimed at scholars and others who want a deep view of a subject

• Search the creators- the author, publisher, and/or host website.

Do they know what they are talking about? Or do they just have opinions? Have others raised concerns about them? Did others identify any problems or good things about the source? Try using:

• • Search Engines, such as Google or Bing
  • Reference information sites, such as Wikipedia
  • Fact-checking sites such as Snopes, Politifact, SciCheck, and FactCheck.org
  • News sites of record. Because their evaluation processes are so strong, news publishers like The New York Times and The Washington Post are considered newspapers of record- substantive popular sources with strong processes for credibility. That doesn’t mean they and the many, many other credible, substantive, popular sources never make mistakes. But it means that those like the ones named take special care to be more credible than popular sources.

Find Better 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 see if it represents a consensus viewpoint or is the subject of much disagreement.

In this case, your best strategy may be to ignore the source that reached you and look for trusted reporting or analysis on the claim. If you find an article that says koalas have just been declared extinct by 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, we encourage you to “find other coverage” that better suits your needs — more trusted, in-depth, or varied.

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

Strategies for Finding Better Coverage

• Determine what type of source it is. If it is:
  • a popular source, look for a substantive popular source on the topic
  • a substantive popular source, look for a trade or scholarly source
  • a news source, look for a source from a news source of record

Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media to the Original Context

Many things you find on the internet have been stripped of context. For example, a video of a fight between two people could be available. But what happened before that? Who started it? What was clipped out of the video, and what stayed in? A picture may seem real, but the caption is dubious at best. Maybe a claim is made about a new medical treatment supposedly based on a research paper, but you’re not certain if the paper supports it.

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 feel that the version you saw was accurately presented.

Strategies for Tracing to the Original Context

• Determine the type or purpose of the source. If it is:
  • a summary or overview of a book or research study, look for the actual book or study
  • an interview with a researcher or author, look for sources that the person being interviewed has published
  • a photo or image, try Reverse Image Search using Google or Tin Eye
• Try using fact-checking sites such as Snopes, Politifact, SciCheck, and FactCheck.org
• Look at reference information sites, such as Wikipedia

Putting it all together- it’s about REcontextualizing

A theme runs through all of these SIFT 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? So, 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 they are broadly accepted, 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 a quote, 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. It 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” 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.

Advanced Topics: Evaluating Data

You can use the same skills to evaluate text for credibility to evaluate data. Ask yourself:

• Who created or owns the data? A non-profit or government organization? A corporation? A lobbyist? Does the individual or organization that created or owns the data have an incentive to collect or present the data in a particular way to support its mission?
• What variables were collected, and how are these variables defined?
• Where did the data originate? If it is survey data, are the survey demographics relevant to your project? If it is scientific data, is the material or population sampled relevant to your project?
• When was the data first created or last updated?
• Why is the data important to you? Will it support your argument? Help you make a decision?
• How was the data created? What methodology was used to collect it? Was the methodology valid?

Data is influenced by the individuals who design and implement the processes used to collect it. Consider the influence of bias when evaluating both raw and reported data.

After evaluating for credibility and making your inferences, you should have a group of sources that you feel confident are not just relevant and current or in the right time period, but that are also ones you can trust.

 Chapter Attribution:

“Check, Please! Starter Course,” licensed under CC BY 4.0

Choosing and Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research by Teaching & Learning, Ohio State University Libraries, licensed under CC BY 4.0

Introduction to College Research by Walter D. Butler, Aloha Sargent, and Kesey Smith, licensed under CC BY 4.0

“SIFT (The Four Moves)” by Mike Caulfield, licensed under CC BY 4.0