How to Fact-Check a Claim You Read Online
Read like a professional fact-checker: four moves that catch most bad claims in under two minutes.
This is the method behind every timeline on this site, turned into a guide anyone can use. It is built on the SIFT method and on Stanford research into how professional fact-checkers actually read the web. No special tools, just habits.
Source healthshow
- Primary source3 events
- Peer-reviewed2 events
- Reputable source1 event
8 of 8 source links checked and content-matched automatically.
No reader corrections reviewed yet. See something wrong? Every event page has a way to say so.
Every event names its strongest source; grades come from the domain and declared type. Last reviewed . See how trust works and the source registry.
Steps
- Step 2 · Step 2Well documented
Peer-reviewed · 2 sourceswhy?
Best source: Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning (Stanford Digital Repository)
Cited as a "journal" source (no stronger domain match).Investigate the source, off the page
Open a new tab and search for the outlet or author instead of judging the page by its own design and About section. This is lateral reading. In Stanford's research, professional fact-checkers left a page almost immediately to see what the rest of the web said about it, while students and even scholars stayed on the page, judged it by its looks, and were misled.
Why it matters: A site controls everything it says about itself. It controls nothing about what Wikipedia, news coverage, and watchdogs say about it.
How we know: Stanford's 2016 Civic Online Reasoning study documented the gap between fact-checkers reading laterally and everyone else reading vertically. The technique is taught in Stanford's free curriculum.
Technique: Lateral reading
- Step 3 · Step 3Well documented
Primary source · 2 sourceswhy?
Best source: SIFT (The Four Moves)
Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match).Find better coverage of the claim
Search for the claim rather than the article. Scan the whole first page of results before opening anything, a habit Stanford's curriculum calls click restraint, and look for whether outlets with real reporting standards carry the story. If the only places repeating a dramatic claim are places you have never heard of, that is your answer forming.
Why it matters: You often do not need to verify a claim yourself. Someone more equipped may already have, so find them.
How we know: SIFT's third move, plus the click restraint lesson from Stanford's Civic Online Reasoning curriculum.
Technique: Click restraint
- Step 4 · Step 4Well documented
Primary sourcewhy?
Best source: SIFT (The Four Moves)
Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match).Trace the claim to its original context
Follow the chain backward. A post cites an article, the article cites a study or a document, and the truth lives at the end of that chain. Open the original and check whether it actually says what the summary claims, whether numbers survived the retelling, and what got cropped out. Quotes, statistics, and images lose their context a little more at every hop.
Why it matters: This is the whole idea this site is built on: a claim is only as good as the source under it, read in its original context.
How we know: SIFT's fourth move: trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context.
Sources - Step 5 · Step 5Well documented
Reputable sourcewhy?
Best source: Using the Wayback Machine (Internet Archive help)
The domain "help.archive.org" is on our Reputable source registry.Check the date, and check for edits
Look at when the claim was originally published. A true story from years ago, shared as if it happened today, misleads without containing a single false sentence. If you suspect a page has changed since it was first shared, paste its address into the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to see earlier captures of the same page.
Why it matters: Date confusion is one of the cheapest ways to mislead, and one of the easiest to catch.
How we know: The Wayback Machine's own help pages explain how to look up a page's capture history by URL.
Tool: web.archive.org
Sources - Step 6 · Step 6Well documented
Peer-reviewedwhy?
Best source: Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning (Stanford Digital Repository)
Cited as a "journal" source (no stronger domain match).Decide, and keep the receipt
Make the call: supported, contradicted, or unverified. Then keep the receipt by noting the strongest source you found, the way every event on this site names its sources and grades them. A claim you cannot attach a source to is not a fact you hold. It is a rumor you remember.
Why it matters: The habit is the point. Fact-checking one claim helps once; keeping receipts changes how you read everything.
How we know: Stanford's researchers called evaluating information the cornerstone of civic online reasoning. The receipt habit is this site's house method applied to daily reading.