Lateral Reading and SIFT in Action, Tracing Claims with a Scientific Example

A lot of things you encounter online have been stripped of context. This could be due to inaccurate or misleading re-reporting, edited sound and video, images being shared with inaccurate captions, etc. In some cases, stories or claims can be improved with added research or context as they pass through intermediaries. However, in most cases the more a story circulates, the more it becomes warped and you’re presented with a potentially misinformed version of an event or piece of research. This is when you investigate further and start tracing back to the original source for full context. Misinformation is “false information that is spread, regardless of intent to mislead” and disinformation is “deliberately misleading or biased information; manipulated narrative or facts; propaganda.” (from Dictionary.com). To evaluate a claim made in the news, a great strategy today is to trace claims back to the linked or cited research articles.

One way to check science or health research reported in the news is to  find the scientific study that is being cited or linked to for fact checking. If the scientific study is not linked directly in the popular or news source you’re reading, you can look at what the news source is citing, journal or institution mentioned, and try Googling or using Google Scholar to search for the study title or an author who is quoted. 

So once you’ve found the journal article that the news source is referencing, there are a series of questions to ask:

• Was there a peer review process?
• Was the publication date relevant to the news article?
• Are there any retractions or corrections mentioned in the article? https://retractionwatch.com/ 
• Who do the authors work for?

Skimming the article is very important, and particularly paying attention to the Abstract (summary of the article) and Conclusion sections. When reviewing the conclusion, ask yourself: does it match the findings reported in the news? Other questions about the article that you can ask: are there any uncertainties reported in the discussion? Are the methods used in the study appropriate and reproducible?

This 4.5 minute video goes through an example of following science news back to the research article:

Quick Check: