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While focused primarily on political facts, it covers specific claims in-depth and with plenty of cross-referencing.
A product of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, this site is terrific for checking up on political claims.
One of the oldest debunking sites on the internet, Snopes.com focuses on urban legends, news stories and memes. They also provide sources for all of their debunking.
Similar to Snopes but tighter in scope, Hoax-Slayer focuses on email hoaxes, identity theft scams, and spam.
An independent online media outlet. MBFC News is dedicated to educating the public on media bias and deceptive news practices.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact researches the claims of politicians and checks their accuracy.
In-class:
Assign each student a fact-checker and have them explore their site. Let students pick an article or social media post they didn't realize was fake and have them think-pair-share with a partner. Discuss what ways students usually fact-check claims and how often they do it in their lives.
Alternatively: Let students try to fact-check a news article that is most relevant to a concept you are learning about in class or one of the readings for the week. Students should do a quick search online in whatever way they choose to see if they can verify the article's claims. Then assign each student or group a fact-checker from this list. Ask them which method of verifying the article they preferred, what was difficult or unhelpful with the fact-checker they used, or even if they think professors should be required to go through this process before they assign readings.
Online:
Make the prompt above a discussion post! Use Flipgrid to allow students to record a brief answer to the prompt and have them submit it to the discussion post. You can then have them respond to each other's picks using Flipgrid or in written comments.
Previously referred to as the Four Moves and a Habit in his open access textbook, Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers, Michael A. Caulfield has shortened and simplified this method of evaluating sources into the SIFT method.
Read more about using SIFT here.
The CRAAP test has been used for many years and was originally developed by librarian Sarah Blakeslee from California State University, Chico.
The following module from one of our databases, CREDO Instruct, explains what lateral reading is and how students can use it. Check out the video at the end of the module for great practical applications.
TIP: You can embed this whole tutorial as well as quizzes from CREDO Instruct in your Canvas shell. If you would like to know how, contact a librarian!