The materials below are written for general audiences. They are released under a Creative Commons license — feel free to share them with classes, libraries, or family members.
A printable one-page worksheet that walks you through five questions to ask before sharing any article. Tested in classrooms grades 8–12.
Plain-language definitions of forty common terms — from "primary source" to "astroturfing" — written for non-specialists.
A guide to building a balanced media diet that includes outlets from the political left, center, and right. Updated quarterly.
Step-by-step instructions for using free tools like reverse image search and metadata viewers to confirm what you're seeing.
Sample scripts and de-escalation tips for talking with relatives about misinformation without damaging the relationship.
A curated list of long-standing, transparent fact-checking organizations and media-literacy nonprofits we trust and recommend.
Resources are sent on request — please contact us with the names of the materials you'd like and we'll email PDFs the same day.
Our framework draws on the SIFT method developed by Mike Caulfield (Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, Trace claims) combined with traditional reference-librarian source-evaluation criteria. We adapt these for adult, non-classroom settings.
Before you read further or share, pause. Strong emotional reactions are the single biggest predictor of sharing misinformation.
Open a new tab. Search for the publication and the author. Look at the "About" page, look at Wikipedia, look at who funds the outlet. This takes 60 seconds.
If a claim is true and important, multiple independent outlets will cover it. If only one obscure site is reporting something explosive, that's a flag.
Follow links back to the original document, study, or recording. Read the original. Most misinformation lives in the gap between an original source and how it's been characterized.
