evaluating information

In the age of the internet, misinformation is spread like wildfire. From clickbait articles on Facebook to satirical news articles getting passed on as fake news,  it's easy to get caught in the crossfire. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone to say anything. In the past few months, Donald Trump's claims that the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other liberal media are sharing "fake news," the public has been on high alert to try to weed out the good from the bad.

As a swing dancer, the vast majority of our information is passed by "word of mouth" (or by demonstrations) by our dance instructors in lessons. There is little to know way to fact-check the moves that instructors demonstrate. It feels impossible to know the "real name" for a move like apple jacks, sugar steps, or boogie drops, since many people call them different names. The best way to validate information in the swing dancing world is to go out into a different community to social dance. Gather information from many sources, so you can start to compile your own knowledge. Additionally, looking up historic videos or video tutorials can help to really cement your swing dancing vocabulary.

Similarly, getting your news from several verified sources will help to eliminate much of the "fake news" and misinformation you encounter. A general rule of thumb is to check at least six different sources before assuming something is the truth. Just because one article on Facebook says that Betty White has died doesn't mean you should take it to be true. This article is a great example of two professors who are tired of misinformation and are designing a class to help students differentiate between misrepresented numbers and the valid information. Factitious is a fun game meant to develop a good sense for what news is true and what is false and identifies several reliable news sources.

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j-g-lt by Barry Crabtree is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.