"SIFTing through Information," Kunzler

SIFTing Through Information

 

 

Information is everywhere! On our phones, on the internet, in print items (books, newspapers, snail mail), in conversations with others. You encounter information every day. And in today's digital world information is easier to access, produce, and replicate. The internet has made information creation and access easier than ever before in the history of our world. And, because of the ease of information creation and access, you will most likely encounter information in your life that you aren't sure is correct or true and want to investigate or even ignore. The process of sifting through information is part of practicing critical thinking skills and becoming an information literate person. Learning evaluation methods and practicing these methods will help you be a better student, citizen, and employee.

In this section, you will learn one method that can be used to evaluate information from online media sources (social media, online newspapers, news blogs, and videos and live news streaming).  The method you will learn is called the SIFT method. This method is mainly used to evaluate media information found on the world wide web, but most of the steps can be applied to other types of information you encounter and might use for academic assignments in college. In academic assignments, such as papers and presentations, you will often be required to find, use and create information. When you find information to use in your assignments, you will want to be sure that the information used and created is credible, accurate, and worthy of sharing. But, with so much information available, it can be challenging to identify quality information, especially when using web sources. Luckily, there are developed methods, like the SIFT method that you can use to guide you in evaluating information.

The SIFT method, created by Washington State University digital literacy expert, Mike Caulfield, condenses source and media information evaluation strategies into four steps that can help you make a decision about whether or not the information or the source you encounter is worthy of your attention.

Using the SIFT method

Stop

When you first encounter a source of information and start to read it—STOP. Ask yourself if you know and trust the website, author, publisher, or publication. If you don’t, then use the other moves that follow, to get a better sense of what you are looking at. In other words, don’t read, share, or use the source in your research until you know what it is, and you can verify it is reliable.

This step is an important step. Especially, when we consider the many aspects of the attention economy (Links to an external site.) (Butler, et al., 2021).

Investigate the Source

You don’t have to spend several hours investigating a source before you engage with it. But, you should be aware of who wrote or provided the information. For example, if you find an article written by a Nobel prize-winning chemist, you need to know that before you read it. Likewise, if you’re watching a video on the many benefits of exercise, you would want to be aware of who produced the video. Knowing the expertise and agenda of the person, company or organization who created the source is crucial to your interpretation of the information provided.

Another critical step to investigating a source is to see what others are saying about the source. Instead of digging deep into the one source, spend some time “reading laterally”. Lateral reading is a technique that fact-checkers use when investigating a source. When they come to a source they want to investigate, fact-checkers don’t spend much time on the source itself. Instead, they quickly begin moving to other sources and piece together different bits of information from across the web to get a better picture of the source they are investigating.

Watch this short video [2:44]: (Links to an external site.)This video provides a demonstration of this strategy. In the video, notice how Wikipedia can be used to quickly get useful information about publications, organizations, and authors. (Note: Turn on closed captions with the “CC” button or use the text transcript (Links to an external site.) if you prefer to read).

Find Better Coverage

What if the source that came to you or you found isn’t a good source or you can’t identify the reliability of the source? Or, maybe, you aren’t interested in who wrote it as much as you are in the content. In other words, you care about the claim that source is making. You want to know if the claim is true or false or what others know about the claim. A common example of this is a meme you might encounter on social media. The random person or group who posted the meme may be less important than the quote or claim the meme makes.

Your best strategy, in this case, might be to find a better source, to look for other coverage that includes trusted reporting or analysis on that same claim. Rather than relying on the source that you initially found, you can trade up for a higher quality source.

Fortunately, because we have the internet, you are not limited to using that initial source. You can find a better source, and invest your time there. Watch this video [4:10]. (Links to an external site.) Links to an external site.This video demonstrates this strategy; note how fact-checkers build a library of trusted sources they can rely on to provide better coverage. (Note: Turn on closed captions with the “CC” button or use the text transcript (Links to an external site.) if you prefer to read).

Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media 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 actually said that. The people who re-report these stories either get things wrong by mistake or, in some cases, they are intentionally misleading us.

In these cases, you will want to trace the claim, quote, or media back to the source, so you can see it in its original context and get a sense of whether the version you saw was accurately presented. Please watch the following video [1:33]: (Links to an external site.)This video discusses re-reporting vs. original reporting and demonstrates a quick tip: going “upstream” to find the original reporting source. (Note: Turn on closed captions with the “CC” button or use the text transcript (Links to an external site.) if you prefer to read.)

 

Bibliography

Butler, Walter D.; Sargent, Aloha & Smith, Kelsey (n.d.). Introduction to College Research (Links to an external site.)

Caulfield, Mike. Check, Please! Starter Course