What people need most when confronted with a claim that may not be 100% true is things they can do to get closer to the truth. Things that provide context. They need something we call “moves.”

Here are the four moves this guide is based on:

• Look for trusted work: Look around  the web to see if someone else has already fact-checked the claim; provided a synthesis of research; or provided trusted, verified and objective reporting.
• Find the original: Go “upstream” to the source of the claim. Most web content is not original. Get to the original source to understand the trustworthiness of the information.
• Investigate the source: Do what we call "reading laterally". Once you get to the source of a claim, read what other people say about the source (publication, author, etc.) Are they credible? Careful with facts? Do they have an agenda beyond good science or good reporting?
• Circle back: If you get lost, hit dead ends, or find yourself going down an increasingly confusing rabbit hole, back up and start over knowing what you know now. You’re likely to take a more informed path with different search terms and better decisions.

In general, you should try these moves in sequence. If you find success at any stage, your work might be done.

The following videos show these moves in action. For reasons that are complicated to explain we show the videos in a different order than we list them here. But watch the videos while remembering the best sequence to try the moves in is as portrayed above.