Fact Checking 101

Fact-checking is an essential technique needed when you write. There are five reasons why you should include fact-checking in your writing routine. Are you wondering how you can use fact-checking to maintain the credibility of your documents? This course will help you acquire authentic writing skills to improve your credibility. We explore how fact-checking works in documents and go through some examples and exercises that will help you learn its process. We will compare fact-checking to proofreading, describe a fact-checking routine, discuss a formal system for doing this and describe how to incorporate it into your daily writing routine. You will also learn to overcome the initial problems you may encounter when applying these techniques.

We will then investigate some important fact-checking areas, such as where to look something up, which sources you can rely on and which ones are dubious or unreliable. We examine some of the most valuable sources available to determine the accuracy of the information in an article. Discover how to do a fact-check on names, including all proper nouns like names of people, their job titles, places, businesses, schools and so on. Another essential element of fact-checking is numbers. These include amounts, percentages, dates, statistics, street numbers, phone numbers, distances, measurements and more. Learn how to check the accuracy of numbers using various available resources. We demonstrate how to determine the authenticity of research results on the internet, such as blogs or news sites. Research different approaches and methods to find the sources of information available on the internet.

The course will help you complete practical exercises to test your knowledge of the important points, methods and approaches discussed in the previous fact-checking topics. These include scenarios where you need to be extra careful to ‘get it right’ and where the stakes could be high. Delve into the concept of defamation and learn about the risks associated with potentially dangerous, emotional or urgent information. Become familiar with precautions and confidentiality clauses when sharing information about others, whether they are neighbors, friends, clients or colleagues. We then discuss the concept of ‘information responsibility’ and plagiarism. This course is ideal for freelance writers, editors, bloggers, authors or online publishers who want to gain a competitive edge and are concerned about reliability and accuracy. So why wait? Start your learning journey today.