Toolkit resource
A Community Discussion Guide for Evaluating Claims
A ninety-minute facilitation guide for running a claim-evaluation discussion in a library, congregation, or community group without it becoming an argument.
For communities
Libraries
Public and academic libraries are the most natural home for this work: free, open to anyone, already trusted for reference help, and staffed by people who evaluate sources professionally.
Why libraries are well placed
Three things distinguish a library from most other venues for this material. Attendance costs nothing and requires no affiliation. Staff already perform source evaluation as part of reference work, so the procedure is familiar rather than novel. And the institution is not perceived as taking a position, which matters more for this subject than for almost any other.
The main practical difficulty is uneven attendance across multi-session programming. The workshop outline below is designed so that each session stands alone, and says so in the promotion, which improves attendance rather than reducing it.
Where to start
- Read the library workshop outline. It covers room setup, promotion language, materials, accessibility, and both session plans.
- Print the source evaluation worksheet and the seven-questions checklist.
- Choose one unfamiliar source and complete the evaluation yourself before the session, including the searches that return nothing.
Promotion language that works
Name the skill rather than the threat. "Checking What You Read: practical methods for working out where online information comes from" attracts a broader audience than anything containing the word misinformation, and the difference is largest among the people least likely to attend.
Reference desk use
Beyond programming, the Digital Navigator works as a reference interview structure when a patron arrives with a specific claim they want checked. It gives you a sequence to work through with them, which is more useful than an answer because they can run it again themselves.
Material selected for this audience
Report
What the Evidence Supports in Community Media Literacy Programming
A short evidence review for libraries, schools, and community organizations planning free media literacy sessions, with confidence levels attached to each finding.
Toolkit resource
AI Content Verification Checklist
What to check when content may have been generated or altered by an AI system, organized around provenance rather than visual artefacts.
Article
What AI-Generated Content Changes
Which verification habits still work when text, images, and audio can be produced at near-zero cost, and which ones quietly stopped working.
Toolkit resource
Library Workshop Outline: Two Sessions, Two Hours Each
A two-part workshop outline for public library programming, with room requirements, promotion language, and a plan for participants who arrive only once.
Toolkit resource
Source Evaluation Worksheet: Lateral Reading in Five Fields
A structured worksheet for evaluating an unfamiliar publisher in about five minutes, with space to record what you found and what you still do not know.
Toolkit resource
Seven Questions Before You Share: Printable Checklist
A one-page checklist of seven questions to run before forwarding content, sized for printing, pinning, or saving to a phone.
Lesson
How Images Lose Their Original Context
Recontextualized photographs mislead more often than manipulated ones. Here is how it happens and how to trace an image back to its origin.
Toolkit resource
Image Context Checklist: Tracing a Photograph
Six checks for establishing when and where a photograph was taken and what it can honestly be said to show.
Think Lab
Evaluate a Source
Practice lateral reading on a fictional organization: what to do first, and how a funding finding should change your reading.
Lesson
How to Evaluate an Online Source
Lateral reading in practice: how to judge an unfamiliar website or account in about two minutes by leaving the page rather than studying it.
Think Lab
Analyze a Headline
Practice reading three headlines for what they establish, what they imply, and what they leave for the article to prove.
Lesson
How to Read a News Story Critically
A repeatable six-pass method for reading a news story: claim, sourcing, evidence, framing, omissions, and confidence.
Toolkit resource
News Story Reading Checklist: Six Passes
A printable card summarizing the six-pass method for reading a news story, with the question each pass asks.
Toolkit resource
Feed Audit Worksheet: Ten Items, Three Questions
A short structured audit of your own feed that makes the selection process visible and separates what you see from what is prevalent.
Lesson
Fact, Inference, and Opinion
How to tell an observation from an interpretation from a value judgment, and why mixing them is the most common reasoning error in public argument.
Other audiences
See the For Communities overview for the design principles behind every guide here, and for the other settings this material has been adapted to.