Here is how Peter Adams, the News Literacy Project’s senior vice president of education, described it during a March 14 segment of NPR’s All Things Considered:
“The equivalent of taking 20 seconds and washing your hands is very much the same in the information space. If everyone can take 20 seconds, investigate the source, do a quick Google search, stay skeptical, we can eliminate a great deal of the confusion and misinformation out there.”
From https://newslit.org/tips-tools/take-20-seconds-for-good-information-hygiene/
If you are unfamiliar with the source, it is always a good idea to open a new tab and do a web search on the source and/or the organization that is providing it. This is what is called "lateral" reading.
Note: This SIFT method guide was adapted from Michael Caulfield's "Check, Please!" course. The canonical version of this course exists at http://lessons.checkplease.cc. The text and media of this site, where possible, is released into the CC-BY, and free for reuse and revision. We ask people copying this course to leave this note intact, so that students and teachers can find their way back to the original (periodically updated) version if necessary. We also ask librarians and reporters to consider linking to the canonical version.
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