As technology evolves, misinformation has become easier than ever to create. Photos and videos can be effortlessly manipulated, and social media algorithms are designed to show you only what they think you want to see. 

Learning to evaluate information for accuracy is therefore a critical life skill, and one that will serve you well while completing assignments. 
 

Four Moves and a Habit

Four Moves and a Habit is a skillset originally designed by Michael Caulfield in his book, Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers. 

Visit Oregon State University's Four Moves and a Habit page for a succinct summary of the concept. In particular, check out the discussion questions and activities at the bottom of the page. 

The four moves, now also known by the acronym SIFT, are:

• Stop
  Take a minute. Don't use or share information until you know what it is you're looking at. 
• Investigate the Source
  Knowing the expertise and agenda of the source is crucial to your interpretation of what they say.  
• Find better coverage
  Read laterally - find multiple sources to gather a consensus. 
• Trace claims, quotes and media to the original context
  Sources can be stripped of context to portray an event in a certain light. Finding the original coverage may be illuminating. 
   

The habit: Check your emotions. 

From Caulfield's book: 

"The habit is simple. When you feel a strong emotion—happiness, anger, pride, vindication—and that emotion pushes you to share a “fact” with others, stop. Above all, these are the claims that you must fact-check.

Why? Because you’re already likely to check things you know are important to get right, and you’re predisposed to analyze things that put you in an intellectual frame of mind. But things that make you angry or overjoyed, well…our record as humans is not good with these things."