Whether you’re writing a college essay or a news article, it’s important that you get your facts right. Incorrect information can lead to a lack of trust from the reader. While it’s true that many readers will believe any facts you present to them, it only takes one reader who knows the truth to call you out. On top of this, being factual is the ethical thing to do - spreading lies and misinformation is harmful to society and can devalue the truth.
Most people don’t set out to spread lies. Unfortunately, there is already a lot of misinformation and fake news out there - particularly on the internet where anyone can freely voice their thoughts - and many of us simply end up taking this at face value and using it to support our own written work. This is why it’s important to always fact-check when creating any type of written work. This post explains exactly how to master the art of fact-checking.
Don’t believe all you read on social media
Social media is a minefield of misinformation and one of the worst places to get your facts from. Sadly, it’s where most people get their information.
There are a lot of popular accounts that make outrageous claims - sometimes using poorly researched or inflated stats to back up these claims. If you want to back up your own written claims with a fact that you learned through social media, make sure to check that this fact is not a complete lie. This involves getting off of social media and tracing the fact back to the source, which leads to the next important fact-checking point…
Trace facts and figures back to the source
If someone provides a fact or figure, but does not clearly give a source, it’s important to identify the source yourself so that you don’t accidentally regurgitate false information.
Search the fact or figure into Google to look for the source - you may find that the top results are news articles. While a news article is generally a more reliable source than a social media post, it is still not entirely reliable. Ideally, a news article should quote a study or a report when giving a figure. Follow this link and check the study or report. Sometimes studies and reports may be hidden behind paywalls - unless you’re willing to pay to unlock these, you cannot always trust that a figure is correct, so bear this in mind.
Once you’ve confirmed a fact or figure, make sure to reference the source in your work. You can do this via a hyperlink or via a footnote, depending on whether your work is going to be read digitally or printed.
Check where quotes have come from
It’s also important to trace back quotes to their source. As with facts and figures, you cannot always trust a quote on social media, or even a quote in a news article.
If quotes were spoken in person, you will need to find an audio or video clip to confirm them. If the quote comes from a book, then you need to check the book itself before quoting it. This is important to ensure that the quote is correctly worded and hasn’t been taken out of context (for example, someone could say ‘I don’t like dogs. I love them’ and this could be misquoted as ‘I don’t like dogs’, completely twisting the meaning).
Use hyperlinks or footnotes to reference these quotes in your work so that the reader can also check them.
Stick to trusted publications
Some news publications are more trusted than others and are generally better places to look for facts and quotes. This is because these publications strive to be unbiased and will back up their information with reliable sources (which makes it easier for you to fact-check them).
What are some of the most reliable news publications? Associated Press is often cited as the most trusted news source - its articles are deliberately neutral and unprovocative (sometimes to the point of being dull to read) and always backed up by sources. Reuters, NPR and the BBC are also dedicated to providing unbiased and factually correct information.
Use sites like Full Fact and Snopes
There are sites that are dedicated to debunking myths and finding the truth such as Full Fact and Snopes. These are worth looking at when trying to trace the origin of stories or viral claims.
Even though these sites aim to be politically neutral and unbiased, it is important to still check any sources that are used. A benefit of these sites is that they typically don’t just provide sources, but help to explain truths in layman's terms - as some reports and studies can sometimes use very technical language.
Take great care when using AI chatbots
Generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Perplexity are fast replacing search engines as the place where many people go to get their facts - largely because they get straight to the point rather than requiring users to trawl through sponsored and SEO-boosted search listings that may not always have the information they’re looking for.
The problem with AI chatbots is that they are prone to ‘AI hallucinations’. While these chatbots are able to draw from huge amounts of data to provide facts and quotes, they don’t always pull information from the right places and can sometimes make up information to fill gaps simply to provide an answer. This can lead to preposterous and hilarious mistruths.
To avoid AI hallucinations, it’s important to use the right prompts. This typically involves asking questions in an unbiased way and asking to provide sources (make sure to check these sources to ensure the information is correct).
Reverse search images
It’s becoming increasingly easy to create fake images - either by photoshopping them or using AI to generate images. Reverse searching images can help you to find out where they came from. This will quickly help you to determine whether the image is altered.
How do you do a reverse image search? This post explains how to reverse image search on Google. Such a tool is also useful for crediting an image.
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