Fact-checking · 4/6
Corroborate without counting repetitions
Track dependencies and compare actual evidence rather than the number of sites.
About 15–20 minutes. The following cases are fictional.
Record your first judgment
Three sites report reduced neighborhood noise, all citing one developer page. A resident says it feels unchanged. Are these four independent measurements?
Understand the judgment process
Map three articles to one promotional source. They repeat a claim rather than independently validate it. A resident’s experience is a useful lead but not the same measure as instrument readings.
Inspect measurement sites, times, devices, baseline and coverage. A promoter may hold original data and may select favorable results. Check methods and complete records rather than deciding by identity alone.
Even separate sources may share errors or inputs. Record support, contradiction, background and unresolved relations to specific claims. Compare definitions and conditions before combining disagreements.
Checks you can perform
- Identify the underlying report or data for each item.
- Check whether it supplies new direct evidence.
- Compare definitions, coverage and collection.
- Preserve conflicts and gaps instead of voting by article count.
Guided practice
What should follow the three reposts and resident account?
Explore the explanation
Seek measurement records and methods, checking baseline comparability. Treat the resident account as a lead. If measurements are unavailable, report the claimed reduction as unverified rather than inventing a truth percentage.
Apply it in a new context
Two studies agree using one public dataset. Are they independent data collections?
Compare after attempting
No. They may be distinct analyses of shared observations. Record the common input and methodological differences.
Preserve a revision record
Independence is an evidence relationship, not a domain property. Group labels help inspect it but do not establish reliability.
Check whether you supplied inspectable evidence, a feasible next step and revision conditions. Revealing an answer is not mastery.
Source and scope
Reuters — Journalistic Standards
The source provides conceptual or methodological background. Cases, steps and exercises are authored here; they are not the original experiment or evidence of this course’s effectiveness.
Completion is a personal record, not proof of mastery or certification.