Mike Caulfield, a research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, created the SIFT method. The following is adapted from Caulfield's website and materials, shared under a Creative Commons attribution license.
SIFT consists of four moves: Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, and Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context.
Stop
Stopping reminds you of two things:
- Ask yourself whether you know the website or the source of information. Do you know the reputation of the website? Don't read or share media until you know what it is.
- If you feel you are getting overwhelmed in your fact-checking efforts, STOP and remember your purpose.
- Are you there to repost, read an interesting story, or get a high-level explanation of a concept?
- First, find out if the information is reputable.
Investigate the Source
The idea here is that you want to know what you’re reading before you read it. Knowing the expertise and agenda of the source is crucial to your interpretation of what they say. Taking sixty seconds to figure out where media is from before reading will help you decide if it is worth your time, and if it is, help you to better understand its significance and trustworthiness.
This can be as simple as Google searching the author or organization that created the source to check out who they are, consider their expertise, and look for any problematic biases or conflicts of interest. Wikipedia is your friend here!
Find better coverage
Sometimes you don’t care about the particular article or video that reaches you. You care about the claim the article is making. You want to know if it is true or false. You want to know if it represents a consensus viewpoint, or if it is the subject of much disagreement.
In this case, your best strategy may be to ignore the source that reached you, and look for trusted reporting or analysis on the claim.
Do you have to agree with the consensus once you find it? Absolutely not! But understanding the context and history of a claim will help you better evaluate it and form a starting point for future investigation.
Trace claims, quotes, and media back to the original context
Much of what we find on the internet has been stripped of context.
Maybe there’s a video of a fight between two people with Person A as the aggressor. But what happened before that? What was clipped out of the video and what stayed in? Maybe there’s a picture that seems real but the caption could be misleading. Maybe a claim is made about a new medical treatment based on a research finding — but you’re not certain if the cited research paper really said that.
In these cases we’ll have you trace the claim, quote, or media back to the source, so you can see it in it’s original context and get a sense if the version you saw was accurately presented.