[
]1I recently found myself on
a journal website – looked all good, but it was published by a nutrition
organisation. In the UK ‘nutritionist’ isn’t a terribly well regarded
title (certainly no protection) so I wondered how I could check whether
the organisation was in fact a credible one, or if this was industry
quacks publishing an “academic” journal. Quick google for the name of
the organisation + quacks, and hullo Quack Watch So, then I wondered,
what other sites are there that are useful for this kind of task? I’m
not interested here in general critical reading skills, or digital
literacy (E.g. the [digital disruption]2 materials), and evidence
evaluation (See e.g. ) but rather, where can people look to check their
facts.# Check against other sources, and keep searching Obviously a
crucial method is just looking at the source of the material – checking
who wrote it, provenance, who the publisher is, sources cited, etc. –
and making a credibility judgement on the material – is it well argued
for, is it plausible, does it give verifiable claims. Of course then,
checking against other websites is a good idea too. Dan Russell has
written some great posts about much of this too, including this great
post on dealing with source discrepancies Also, this question and answer
on finding incredible things, and ‘when do you search for more
information’. (The ones the week before on the origins of Earl Grey Tea
were also good). (also see , and )# Check who wrote it, check what
other people are saying A related strategy is to check who wrote the
material, and how their perspective (and position) compares to that of
other writers. I often check the talk pages and history of wikipedia
articles (as well as the reference list)# Go to debunking sites
[Snopes]3 is a great site to check urban legends against. –
which covers various psuedoscience (although note both of these get
things wrong too!)# Analysis of the facts Responses to news articles
(alongside various fantastic blogs) we have: The fantastic NHS Behind
the Headlines Science Media Centre More general sites like Fact Check
Channel4 fact check There are also things like blogs, although you might
question their angle, e.g.: * * * * A friend & colleague maintains a
scientology news watch (and also does lots of other interesting stuff on
critical thinking) In my field (well…sort of…I used to be interested in
neuroscience) there are also great blogs: * * * * (fantastic for
various reasons!)# Look for the facts Then there are things like the
national audit office and very specific organisations like the UK
Statistics Authority which hold specific groups (in this example, MPs)
to account# Check the language being used Another obvious thing to
look for is the way material is written – which is often very dubious
Indeed, The Quackometer analyses language used in a site to give
indications of ‘quacky’ types of things they say # Conclusion Of
course, sometimes you come across a site that looks like what you
want…but how can you be sure. I think this is a good myth busting site
but is a good place to look for hard hitting critique? (See e.g. if
you’re in any doubt on that question 😉 ). I guess what that indicates
is that you should check multiple sources, think about how “facts” are
(a) ‘made’, (b) evidenced, and (c) sourced, and how that aligns with
your prior knowledge (not, of course, infallible). I’d welcome any other
good resources – as ever, this is a developing post (drafted and pushed
out partially-unfinished!)
