The SIFT method is an evaluation strategy developed by digital literacy expert, Mike Caulfield, to help determine whether online content can be trusted for credible or reliable sources of information. Determining if resources are credible is challenging. Use the SIFT method to help you analyze information, especially news or other online media
Ask yourself whether you know and trust the website or source of the information.
Feel yourself getting overwhelmed in your fact-checking efforts? STOP and take a second to remind yourself what your goal is.
Search news databases for relevant stories. Try Google News and NewsBank, a library database that provides a comprehensive collection of reliable news sources covering a wide array of topics and issues.
Use known fact-checking sites (see column to the right for sites)
Use reverse image searching to find relevant sources on an image.
Most of the stuff you see on the web is not original reporting or research. Instead, it is often commentary on the re-reporting of re-reporting on some original story or piece of research. And that can be a problem because, in most cases, the more a story is passed around, the more it starts to become a bit warped.
This step asks you to trace your information back to the original source.
"We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit 'consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases."
Fact checking website focusing on political stories. From the Washington Post.
PolitiFact is an independent fact-checking website created by the Tampa Bay Times newspaper to sort out the truth in American politics. It rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics.
Checks "the accuracy of claims by pundits, columnists, bloggers, political analysts, the hosts and guests of talk shows, and other members of the media."
"...dedicated to evaluating medical treatments and products of interest to the public in a scientific light, and promoting the highest standards and traditions of science in health care."
One of the oldest debunking sites. Focuses on urban legends, news stories and memes.
