{"id":33,"date":"2017-02-11T23:25:23","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T23:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/chapter\/how-to-use-previous-work\/"},"modified":"2018-01-19T11:37:31","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T11:37:31","slug":"how-to-use-previous-work","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/chapter\/how-to-use-previous-work\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Use Previous Work"},"content":{"raw":"\n

When fact-checking a particular claim, quote, or article, the simplest thing you can do is to see if someone has already done the work for you.<\/p>\n

This doesn't mean you have to accept their finding. Maybe they assign a claim \"four Pinocchios\" and you would rate it three. Maybe they find the truth \"mixed\" but honestly it looks \"mostly false\" to you.<\/p>\n

But regardless of the finding, a reputable fact-checking site or subject wiki will have done much of the leg work for you -- tracing claims to their source, identifying the owners of various sites, and linking to reputable sources for counterclaims. And that legwork -- no matter what the finding -- is probably worth ten times your intuition. If the claims and the evidence they present ring true to you -- or if you have built up a high degree of trust the site -- then you can treat the question as closed. But even if you aren't satisfied, you can start your work from where they left off.<\/p>\n

Constructing a Query to Find Previous Fact-Checking<\/h2>\n

You can find previous fact checking by using the \"site\" option in search engines such as Google and Duck Duck Go to search known and trusted fact checking sites for a given phrase or keyword. For example, if you see this story:<\/p>\n[caption id=\"attachment_29\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1968\"]\"Online Figure 4a Description<\/a>[\/caption]\n

Then you might use this query, which checks a couple known fact-checking sites for the keywords 'obama iraqi refugee ban 2011'. Let's use the Duck Duck Go search engine to do this:<\/p>\n

obama iraqi visa ban 2011 site:snopes.com site:politifact.com<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here's what we get back for results:<\/p>\n[caption id=\"attachment_30\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"738\"]\"Screenshot Figure 5a Description<\/a>[\/caption]\n

You can see the search here<\/a>. You see that work has already been done in this area -- in fact, the fist result from Snopes answers our question pretty fully. Remember to follow best search engine practice -- scan the results, looking at the URLs and the blurbs to find the best result to click in the returned result set.<\/p>\n

There are similar syntaxes you can use in Google, but for various reasons this particular search is easier in Duck Duck Go.<\/p>\n

Let's look at another claim -- this one from the President. This claim is that police officer deaths increased 56 percent from 2015 to 2016. Here it is in context:<\/p>\n[caption id=\"attachment_31\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"547\"]\"Excerpt Figure 6a Description<\/a>[\/caption]\n

So let's ramp it up with a query that checks four different fact-checking sites:<\/p>\n

officer deaths 2016 increased 56 percent from 2015 site:factcheck.org site:snopes.com site:politifact.com site:www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/fact-checker\/<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This gives us back a helpful array of results. The first, from the Washington Post, actually answers our question directly, but some of the others provide some helpful context as well:<\/p>\n[caption id=\"attachment_32\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"754\"]\"Duck Figure 7a Description<\/a>[\/caption]\n

Going to the Washington Post site we find out that this claim is for all intents and purposes true. We don't need to go further, unless we want to.<\/p>\n\n","rendered":"

When fact-checking a particular claim, quote, or article, the simplest thing you can do is to see if someone has already done the work for you.<\/p>\n

This doesn’t mean you have to accept their finding. Maybe they assign a claim “four Pinocchios” and you would rate it three. Maybe they find the truth “mixed” but honestly it looks “mostly false” to you.<\/p>\n

But regardless of the finding, a reputable fact-checking site or subject wiki will have done much of the leg work for you — tracing claims to their source, identifying the owners of various sites, and linking to reputable sources for counterclaims. And that legwork — no matter what the finding — is probably worth ten times your intuition. If the claims and the evidence they present ring true to you — or if you have built up a high degree of trust the site — then you can treat the question as closed. But even if you aren’t satisfied, you can start your work from where they left off.<\/p>\n

Constructing a Query to Find Previous Fact-Checking<\/h2>\n

You can find previous fact checking by using the “site” option in search engines such as Google and Duck Duck Go to search known and trusted fact checking sites for a given phrase or keyword. For example, if you see this story:<\/p>\n

\"Online
Figure 4a Description<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then you might use this query, which checks a couple known fact-checking sites for the keywords ‘obama iraqi refugee ban 2011’. Let’s use the Duck Duck Go search engine to do this:<\/p>\n

\n

obama iraqi visa ban 2011 site:snopes.com site:politifact.com<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here’s what we get back for results:<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot
Figure 5a Description<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can see the search here<\/a>. You see that work has already been done in this area — in fact, the fist result from Snopes answers our question pretty fully. Remember to follow best search engine practice — scan the results, looking at the URLs and the blurbs to find the best result to click in the returned result set.<\/p>\n

There are similar syntaxes you can use in Google, but for various reasons this particular search is easier in Duck Duck Go.<\/p>\n

Let’s look at another claim — this one from the President. This claim is that police officer deaths increased 56 percent from 2015 to 2016. Here it is in context:<\/p>\n

\"Excerpt
Figure 6a Description<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So let’s ramp it up with a query that checks four different fact-checking sites:<\/p>\n

\n

officer deaths 2016 increased 56 percent from 2015 site:factcheck.org site:snopes.com site:politifact.com site:www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/fact-checker\/<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This gives us back a helpful array of results. The first, from the Washington Post, actually answers our question directly, but some of the others provide some helpful context as well:<\/p>\n

\"Duck
Figure 7a Description<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Going to the Washington Post site we find out that this claim is for all intents and purposes true. We don’t need to go further, unless we want to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"menu_order":1,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-33","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":28,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34,"href":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/33\/revisions\/34"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/28"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/33\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/webliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}