The SIFT Method is a strategy for evaluating credible or reliable any piece of media you may find, developed by digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield.

Determining if anything you read on the web is reliable is challenging, but the SIFT method can help you analyze any information you encounter, especially news or online media!

All information on the SIFT method located on this website is adapted from Dr. Caulfield's materials with a CC-BY 4.0 license.

Before you read or share an article, STOP!

Be aware of your initial response to the article's headline or opening lines. Headlines are often meant to get clicks, and will often cause the reader to have a strong emotional response.

Before sharing, consider:

• What you already know about the topic.
• What you already know about the source. Do you know its reputation?

The next step before reading or sharing an article is to investigate the source.

Take a second to look up the author and source of the information, to understand their mission, bias, and authority. This is a practice known as lateral reading - seeing what other sources will say about this source.

A common form of lateral reading is the Wikipedia trick. Whenever you come across an article, take a few seconds to look up the publisher on Wikipedia, and see what their contributors have to say about the source's reputation and perspective.

Here is Dr. Caulfield's video on this step:

The next step is to find any other coverage that supports or refutes the original claim.

Again, use lateral reading to see if there's any sources that support or refute the original source's information.

• What coverage on the topic is available?
• Keep track of any trusted news sources.

Many times, fact-checkers have also looked into the claims already. They use nonpartisan websites to increase public knowledge, evaluating claims or sources to see if they are indeed factual or if they're biased and not supported by any facts.

Some of these sites can be good starting points, including:

• Snopes.com
  A fact-checking website that sorts out any myths and rumors found on the Internet and popular sources, using lateral reading techniques.
• PolitiFact
  A fact-checking website that evaluates the accuracy of claims from elected officials and public figures using external sources.
• AllSides.com
  A great resource for finding hidden media bias on websites, including bias charts for popular sources and educational resources on fact-checking.

The SIFT method's final step is to trace any claims, quotes, or media in an article to their original context.

When you're reading an article and they reference quotes from experts or results in a research study, it is good practice to attempt to locate the original source of this information.

• Academic articles will often use a bibliography of all the sources they collected, and if they're published in an online journal will often use direct links.
• Popular sources will often have links to the articles being quoted or reported on within the article's text, which you can follow.

When you come across the original reporting source, ask if the original information was fairly represented, or if it was taken out of context to support an agenda or bias.

For more information on these strategies, here is Dr. Caulfield's video on this step:

Remember that headlines, blogs, videos, or social media may misrepresent facts to get more attention or clicks. This "re-reporting" may omit or misinterpret certain facts to support a biased claim. Make sure to read them in the original context they were presented.

When in doubt, contact an expert - like a librarian!