Anyone can find information. The skill worth having is deciding what to believe, and it is a set of habits rather than an instinct.
Where to look, and what each place is good for
| Where | Good for | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Your library’s databases | Articles somebody edited before publishing | You need the login; ask the librarian once and you have it for five years |
| Government and agency sites | Numbers, laws, official positions | Written to be defensible, not to be clear |
| News organisations with a corrections policy | What happened, and when | Headlines overstate; read past them |
| Books | Depth, and an argument developed over 200 pages | Slower, and sometimes out of date |
| Wikipedia | Orientation, and the reference list at the bottom | Never cite it; use it to find what to cite |
| Social video and posts | What people are saying | No editing, no correction, no accountability |
The five questions
In order, and the first failure ends it:
- Who made this? A name, an organisation, a person who can be found.
- What is the evidence? Numbers, documents, interviews — or nothing.
- When? A 2015 statistic about the internet is a historical document.
- Who benefits if I believe it? Not proof of a lie; a reason to look harder.
- Does anyone independent agree? Three articles can be one press release wearing three hats. Follow each claim to where it started.
The lateral move
The fastest check is not to read the page harder. It is to leave the page and search for the organisation that made it. Fact-checkers do this constantly, and it takes about ninety seconds.
What makes a fake convincing
Not bad spelling. Real design, a plausible name, a real photograph used out of context, and a claim that flatters what you already believe. The last one is the dangerous part — the sources you should check hardest are the ones you most want to be true. That is what Whose Reading Counts is a whole discussion about.
AI answers
A language model will produce a fluent paragraph with invented sources in it, and the invented sources look exactly like real ones. If you use one to orient yourself, you must then find and read the real source. In this course, an unchecked citation is treated the same as a made-up one.
Curriculum connection
C1.3
locate and select information to appropriately support ideas for writing, using a variety of strategies and print, electronic, and other resources, as appropriate (e.g., create a research plan and track their progress using a research portfolio; identify a range of sources in school or public libraries and on the Internet that will provide the most appropriate information for an assignment; interview family and community members, experts, or witnesses to events; use key word searches and other browsing strategies to locate a range of periodical and e-book information in online databases; accurately record page references for information from primary sources; record all sources of information in a list of works cited or references, observing conventions for proper documentation and full acknowledgement of sources and extracts, in recognition of the need to credit original authors and promote academic honesty; use a detailed template to evaluate sources and information for reliability, accuracy, currency, and relevance to the topic; discuss the information selected, the progress of their research to date, and new sources to consider with the teacher or teacher-librarian)
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D1.4
explain why the same media text might prompt different responses from different audiences (e.g., explain why seniors and teens might respond differently to a political speech; suggest reasons why not all their peers like the same type of music)
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B1.6
analyse texts in terms of the information, ideas, issues, or themes they explore, examining how various aspects of the texts contribute to the presentation or development of these elements (e.g., explain how figures of speech in a text highlight the theme and help create a mood; determine how the setting in two short stories helps clarify each story’s main theme)
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D1.5
identify the perspectives and/or biases evident in media texts, including increasingly complex texts, and comment on any questions they may raise about beliefs, values, identity, and power (e.g., explain the perspectives evident in the covers of a selection of novels featured in the school’s English program; comment on the point of view evident in a television news story, identifying other possible points of view; analyse the text and images in a major department store’s website to identify groups and occupations that are represented and those that are nowhere evident)
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