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College Experience: Intro to College (COL 100, 101, 136, and EDU 105): SIFT Online Information

Use this guide to walk you through the College experience: Introduction to College library assignment. You can also refer back to this guide if you need help finding a book, finding an article, or evaluating a website.

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SIFT Instructions

Move 1-Stop

  • Do I know the website or source of information?
  • What is the reputation of both the claim and the website?

Move 2- Investigate

  • Look into the source.
  • You want to know what you are reading before you read it.
  • Investigate the expertise and agenda of the source to determine its significance and trustworthiness.

Move 3- Find

  • If your original source is questionable, find a better source to determine the accuracy of the claim.
  • What other coverage is available on the same topic? Most big news stories that are true get covered by multiple major news outlets.
  • Use fact checking sites like Snopes, Politifact, and FactCheck.org to investigate claims being made.
  • For images, you can do a reverse image search.

Move 4- Trace

  • Trace claims, quotes, and media back to the original context.
  • When reading online sources, pay attention to who they quote as a source and see if you can find more information.
  • Follow hyperlinks in the source that point towards original studies or reporting.
  • If there is a bibliography, open up the original reporting sources listed.
  • After you've found the original claim, quote, finding, or news story, ask yourself if it was fairly and accurately represented in the media that you initially came across.

 

 
 

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