Cite 3 Sources

Remember in school when your English teacher told you to cite three sources on your paper? Well, your teacher was trying to prepare you for the real world - when you hear the news or read an article you should look for other sources to back it up.

As a mathematician I can publish a paper full of research, but in order for it to have any credibility it needs to be peer - reviewed. In other words, other mathematicians should read and correct or approve of my work.

Scrolling through Facebook or watching your favorite news network may be a good way to find out what's going on in the world, but is it really reporting the facts? Spend a few moments researching the topic on the web and ask yourself a few questions:

1. Are there other news sources with similar information?
2. Are these news sources citing credible sources? [If everyone is using the same source be sure to double check their work too.]
3. Is the author or news reporter a reliable source of non-biased news? [e.g. does he/she tend to report facts.]
4. Could this be a joke? [The Onion is not a reliable news source and is known for satire - there are others just like them, so it doesn't hurt to double check.]
5. Double check the date on the information.

One of Politifact's truth-o-meter icons.

Last, but not least, check out one of the fact checking entities:
FactCheck.org
Snopes.com
PolitiFact.com
The Washington Posts fact checker

Or you can start there.

The above fact checking organizations get paid to do all the research (which saves the typical consumer tons of time). They provide reliable links to documents, articles, videos, etc. that back up their research. Follow them on Twitter for daily fact checking claims to help you decide what to believe.

Most of the above guidelines came from Politifact.org in an article titled How to Spot Fake News.

Thanks for reading and please leave your comments, questions, feedback!