Fact Check Assignment

Fact Check Assignment Details

READ: Evaluating Sources: General Guidelines

READ: Why Students Can’t Google Their Way to the Truth

WATCH: Online Verification Skills — Video 2: Investigate the Source

WATCH: Online Verification Skills — Video 3: Find the Original Source

Write a 1500-2000 word examination of a claim you find in the media related to a course topic. Think of this as a writing assignment structured as: “I read that XXXX, but in reality the research says YYYY.”

Choose a topic

The topic of interest must be related to family sociology (broad or specific), and ideally relevant to one of the topics explored in this course or a topic that will be explored later on in the semester (check the syllabus).

Select an article

Find an article you want to fact check. Sources can be any major news organization or policy or research institute. You must be able to identify BOTH the organization that published the article and a specific author(s).

The article must include a claim that can be fact checked (a link to some evidence that can be evaluated). Do NOT select a personal website/blog/comment section.

Papers that do not clearly identify 1 article that is being fact checked will receive a grade of 0%. In other words, papers that appear to be general essays rather than a fact check paper will be graded a zero, as not meeting assignment instructions.

Analyze the facts

Before beginning your fact-checking investigation, watch the videos and read the articles provided in the assignment folder. Then, critically evaluate:

Who is the source?
Examine the organization publishing the article
Research the author(s) of the article.

What is the evidence?
- What is the evidence offered to support the argument (e.g., a peer reviewed study? a national poll? A summary of a new book?)?
- Do the headline and lead support the main point?
- Is the story fair?
- Does the author/reporter place the story in context, providing facts that surround an event or elements of a news story and provide meaning or significance?

Use the “Evaluating Sources: General Guidelines (see above)” as a guide to determine whether the article (not the original source) is fact, opinion, or propaganda.

What do other sources say?
Find and examine the original source (pick one if the article used more than one).
What do you make of the original study? (e.g. Is the data nationally representative? Is the study peer-reviewed?)

Do other credible sources (e.g, mainstream news, non-partisan think tanks, academics) come to the same conclusion?
Is the information in the article consistent with what you’ve learned in this course? Why or why not?

Write your review

Description
State the title of the article, the organization, and the author(s) name(s).
Include the url link to the source you are fact-checking.
State what you found about the organization.
- Do NOT use what is provided in an “About” section of the webpage.
State what you found about the author(s).
- What are their credentials, areas of expertise, or motivation for writing the article?

Evidence
Summarize, in your own words, a key claim in the article.
- If there is more than one, pick just one to fact-check.
Summarize the key evidence for the claim.
- Are the key questions about the source of the information answered?
- Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
Determine whether the claim is fact, opinion, or propaganda.

Fact check
Report your fact checking findings.
- Was a link provided? Where did it go? Could you find the original reporting source?
- Did the article report on a study? If so, can you find the originally published research? Where and who published it?
- Did the article portray the facts accurately/fairly? Was neutral or racist/sexist/homophobic language used?
Report whether the information in the article was consistent with what you’ve learned in this course (justify how you know).
- If no, why? Is the article more nuanced? More recent? Wrong?
- If yes, based on what evidence (which chapter/video)? Be specific.

Grading Rubric

The best assignments will follow the structure and organization provided in the assignment details. Make it easy to grade! You should have three separate sections, with sentences organized in the same order as listed on this handout. This is NOT a creative writing assignment. Don’t make the grader hunt for the information.

Description
Topic is relevant to the course material
Identify title, organization and author & provides a url
Details about the article’s organization
Details about the article’s author

Evidence
Summarize the key claim of the article
Summarize key evidence for the claim
Identify the article as fact/opinion/propaganda and justified

Fact Check
Summarize fact-checking findings
Comparison with source and other materials
Provide evidence and justification for conclusions

Papers will NOT be marked on whether or not the article you chose to evaluate was accurate or not.
The assignment WILL be evaluated on whether you provide all the required information and your justification for your conclusions about the accuracy of the article.

This is a formal writing assignment, so treat it as such. You may lose points for minor grammar or spelling errors, and points will be deducted for poorly written assignments.

Artificial Intelligence tools. Students may choose to use generative artificial intelligence tools as they work through the assignment; this use must be documented in an appendix (text in the appendix does not count toward the required word count). The documentation should include what tool(s) were used, how they were used (e.g., the prompt used to generate the content), and how the results from the AI were incorporated into the submitted work (e.g., any content produced by an artificial intelligence tool, and how it was adapted). The final submitted assignment must be original work produced by the individual student alone.

Citations. Include a references section at the end of the paper. References do not count toward the required word count. Put phrases and quotes from any sources in quotes and properly cite them. (i.e. Coontz wrote in the article “In 1994, 83 percent of young men rejected the superiority of the male-breadwinner family.”). In text quotes should be minimal and only used to illustrate your argument, not to summarize the article’s point.