Research Guides: Sustainability Studies: Fake News &amp; Disinformation

Online Factcheckers

Snopes
Snopes is an independent, self-sufficient web project created by a professional researcher/writer and devoted to fact-checking. It holds the status as the oldest and largest fact-checking site on the Internet.
FactCheck.org
A nonpartisan, nonprofit website that aims to reduce public deception and confusion in U.S. politics. A project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
PolitiFact
A fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims made by and in relation to U.S. politics. Run by editors and reporters from the independent newspaper Tampa Bay Times (owned by the not-for-profit Poynter Institute, a non-profit global leader in journalism).

Evaluating News & Internet Sources

Evaluating information sources can be a difficult and complicated process. The resources below may serve as guides as you build up your own strategies for determining what sources are trustworthy, valid, and factual.

Evaluating Information Sources through Context Worksheet
This worksheet was designed specifically for this SUST 134 library session to guide you through strategies for evaluating information context rather than content, specifically focusing on aspects related to source format and qualities related to the author and publishing platform.

A Finder's Guide to Facts
This guide was created by National Public Radio (NPR) and lays out a quick test that anyone can apply to information sources to help determine if content is factual.
Breaking News Consumer Handbook: Fake News Edition
This handbook, created by the media analysis radio show On the Media, consists of just eleven questions geared to help any information consumer identify if information sources are factual.
Evaluating Sources in a 'Post-Truth' World
This New York Times article is a practical guide to evaluating sources specifically in the context of "fake news."
Fake News: A Library Resource Round-Up
This site is technically geared toward librarians, but it includes a strong collection of resource links that focus on evaluative strategies in the realm of fake news.
Savvy Info Consumers: Fake News
This handy guide, created by librarians at the University of Washington, provides strategies for quickly evaluating different types of fake news.

Evaluating Scholarly Sources

Journal Impact Factor via Journal Citation Reports is a metric intended to represent the research impact of an academic or scholarly journal through a ratio reflecting the yearly average number of citations to recent articles published in an academic journal. This is a unique metric offered through the InCites Journal Citation Reports database.

Journal Citation Reports
Provides impact factor and other metrics for evaluating the quality of research and peer-reviewed journals.

Eigenfactor (journal impact metric alternative) offers an alternative journal-level metric to the Journal Impact Factor. The intent of this metric is to provide a rating for the total importance of a scholarly journal, including changes in influence over time. In addition to journal-level metrics, the Eigenfactor website has rankings for the various disciplines, but also some interesting disciplinary mapping tools.

Eigenfactor
Find journal metrics by searching the Eigenfactor database using a specific journal title, along with options to search by ISSN number, year, publisher, or ISI category.

Author H-Index is an author level metric that measures author productivity and the citation impact of an author’s publications. Use Google Scholar Author Search to find an author’s calculated h-index as well as see how many times they have been cited per year. For example, an individual with an h-index of 150 has 150 published papers that have been cited 150 times or more. A higher h-index correlates to higher research impact.

Google Scholar Author Search
Search for an author name in the Google Scholar Author Search to find the author's calculated h-index number to get a sense of their research productivity and personal research impact.