Fact-Checking Your Writing: Tips & Helpful Websites

Imagine you’ve just written a paper. You’re going to proofread it, right? But is proofreading enough to ensure the absence of any factual errors or unfounded conclusions? Can you say with 100% certainty that you cited every reference correctly?

If you want to learn how to fact-check like a pro, keep reading this article! Our custom-writing team will tell you the best way to review your papers.

🤔 What Is Fact-Checking, and Why Is It Important?

As you may have already deduced, fact-checking is the skill that helps you distinguish between trustworthy and sketchy information sources. We live in a time in which everyone is a self-proclaimed authority on every topic, so navigating the ocean of “facts” is no easy task. That’s where fact-checking comes into play.

More often than not, fact-checking is associated with journalism, but it is just as crucial for students. Here’s why:

• It helps you develop media literacy. Getting experience in fact-checking means that the overabundance of fake news will no longer confuse you.
• It aids in overcoming your own cognitive bias. When you look at information through the lens of your own experiences, your brain inevitably distorts it to conform it to your beliefs. Learning to fact-check is a way to avoid this common mental trap.
• It develops critical thinking. Do you want to become more objective, see the difference between facts and opinions, and avoid media manipulation? If you do, you have to question everything you read instead of taking it at face value.
• It helps you write better papers. Your writing will contain no inaccuracies and arrive at more well-supported conclusions. If you want to know how to achieve it—keep reading!

✅ Fact-Checking Basics for Students

You’re likely aware of the need to proofread every paper for grammatical mistakes before handing it in. But your assessment shouldn’t be limited to grammar only. Checking your facts is crucial if you want to produce credible work, especially if you draw your own conclusions, rely on your memory, or work with secondary sources.

What to Fact-Check

Here’s a little fact-checking checklist to facilitate the process. Watch out for the following:

How to Fact-Check

There are a few things you could do while proofreading to facilitate fact-checking:

• Ask yourself these questions: Who said this? How do they know? Are they biased? What might have been left out?
• Don’t let your confirmation bias get the best of you. Look for evidence for and against anything you assume to be correct by default or to which you have a strong emotional reaction.
• Take a break, and then reread your paper. Once you’ve slept on it, you can view the text in a different light and catch things you could have missed at first. Changing the font can also help you notice your errors.
• While proofreading, try highlighting all numbers, proper names, and facts. Your next step will be to double-check all these things. You can even print the text out and use highlighter markers for more convenience.
• Your own arguments deserve even more attention. Is there an actual confirmation, or have you just jumped to conclusions? Naturally, you don’t want to hand in a paper that’s based on flimsy arguments and invalid assumptions.
• Another tool is a simple gut check. Does it sound right, or does it feel a little off? If something looks unsubstantiated and there’s nothing you can do about it, get rid of it. Better safe than sorry.

🔍 Fact-Checking Your Resources

Working with resources implies checking their reliability and credibility. They’re great for researching and fact-checking what you’ve already written.

What Makes a Source Credible

Checking credibility is especially important if your resources involve Internet websites. The following are characteristics of trustworthy pages:

• Authority. All the authors writing for the site have deep knowledge of their field and credentials that support this.
• Clear purpose. The aim of the resource must be to inform its readers. For example, if the goal is to convince or entertain, it is likely more biased than purely informative sites. More biased means less dependable.
• Objectivity. The more objective your source is, the better. Any effort to persuade the reader or influence them emotionally lowers their level of credibility.
• Current information. You want clear, up-to-date information. Don’t settle for anything less. Changes happen quickly, and your source may be spreading wrong or obsolete information without even knowing it.
• Comprehensive coverage. Another way to assess the reliability of any site is to check how in-depth their coverage of any given topic is. If they publish for the sake of publishing, they are not the source you want to use to support your claims.

How to Spot a Credible Source

Now you know how to distinguish between a trustworthy and an untrustworthy resource. But can you recognize a good one when you’ve come upon it? Here are a few tips:

🔝 Top 5 Websites for Fact-Checking

Now we’d like to provide you with a short list of websites for fact-checking. You can use them to look up information and find out if it’s true or not. These sites are nonprofit and nonpartisan, which means they don’t take sides. Here we go:

1. FactCheck

This one belongs to the University of Pennsylvania and checks all things political. It is the right place if you want to verify the accuracy of something a politician has said in an interview or debate.

What you should know:

• The navigation is excellent. You can browse by month, location, person, and other categories.
• You can ask the team to fact-check a suspicious claim you’ve come across.

2. Politifact

As you might’ve guessed from the name, Politifact fact-checks political issues. Its mission is similar to FactCheck’s in that it seeks the truth and exposes any nonsense told by politicians.

What you should know:

• It’s another site with easy navigation. Again, you can browse by state edition, issue, and person.
• There’s a fun truth-o-meter, which ranges from “truth” to “pants on fire.”

3. ProPublica

ProPublica is all about investigative journalism. It has even won a few Pulitzer Prizes.

What you should know:

• The topics are not limited to politics. There are also articles on racial injustice and technology, among many others.
• You can download and purchase datasets on several topics if you happen to be interested in them. For example, these datasets include information on the Trump Administration, doctors, and loans.
• Not all datasets are free to download; some cost a few thousand dollars. But bear in mind—they’re very extensive.

4. Snopes

Snopes claims to be the oldest fact-checking site, dating back to 1994. They write about many things, including politics and urban legends.

What you should know:

• BBC News holds Snopes in high esteem.
• They list all the sources they use to produce their material. You can trace the process of their fact-checking work and conduct your own investigation.
• The navigation may not be as excellent as on some other sites, but it is still decent.

5. The Sunlight Foundation

The Sunlight Foundation’s primary goal is to make the government more transparent.

What you should know:

• There’s 15 years’ worth of material on technology, policy, and investigations—the three main sections on the Sunlight Foundation blog.
• Unfortunately, since September 2020, they no longer operate, and the site can only be used as an archive.

We hope that our fact-checking tips will come in handy. Don’t forget to be skeptical, and don’t let your imagination run away with you. We hope you knock it out of the park with your next paper! Do you have your favorite fact-checking methods? Share in the comments!

🔗 References

1. Fake News, Misinformation, & Fact-Checking: Ohio University 
2. “Fake News” & Misinformation: University of Tampa 
3. How to Fact-Check an Article You Wrote—Like a Pro: The Write Life 
4. What are Credible Sources?: USC Library 
5. What Makes Information Reliable?: Austin Community College District 
6. Step-by-Step Guide & Research Rescue: Evaluating Credibility: BYU Library