The SIFT Method

Minutes

A four-move routine for anything you meet online: Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, and Trace claims, quotes, and media to their original context; it takes under a minute and replaces the instinct to study the page itself.

How to do it

  1. 1Stop. Before reading closely or sharing, ask two things: do I know this source, and what is my emotional reaction? A strong reaction is the cue to run the other three moves, not to skip them.
  2. 2Investigate the source. Leave the page and spend thirty seconds finding out who is behind it: search the name, read what independent references say, check whether the expertise claimed matches the topic.
  3. 3Find better coverage. If you care about the claim rather than this particular page, search the claim itself and see whether outlets you already trust, or a fact-checker, have covered it and what they concluded.
  4. 4Trace to the original. Follow the quote, statistic, photo, or video upstream to where it first appeared, and compare what it said there with how it is being presented.
  5. 5Re-stop if you get lost. If the checking turns into an hour of tabs, return to the question you started with; the aim is a quick decision about whether this deserves your attention.

What to say

  • “Give me thirty seconds. I want to see who this is and whether anyone else is reporting it.”
  • “Where did that number originally come from? Let us find the first source rather than this repost.”

When to use it

  • •An unfamiliar site, account, or organization making a claim that matters to a decision.
  • •Viral posts, screenshots, and forwarded messages with no obvious origin.
  • •Health, financial, and political claims that provoke a strong immediate feeling.
  • •Teaching children, students, or older relatives a routine short enough to be used.

Counters

Information LaunderingTrading Up the ChainSource HackingOut-of-Context MediaMisattributed QuotesScreenshot ForgeryFake Fact-CheckFront GroupsNative Advertising DeceptionImpersonation AccountsTyposquatting DomainsData Void ExploitationKeyword SquattingContextomy (Quote Mining)False AttributionGray and Black PropagandaRage FarmingClickbait

Evidence and how strong it is

SIFT was formulated by Mike Caulfield (2019) as a simplification of the "four moves" in his earlier open textbook, and it packages the lateral-reading behaviour that Wineburg & McGrew (2019) observed in professional fact-checkers. The underlying skills have been tested in classrooms. Brodsky et al. (2021) found that college students taught these moves in a general-education civics course were substantially more likely to read laterally and to assess sources correctly than a comparison group. Wineburg et al. (2022) ran a district-wide field study in high-school government classes and found that six lessons produced significant gains in evaluating online sources. Evidence strength: moderate. Quasi-experimental and field studies show the behaviours can be taught and improve source judgments; long-term retention and use outside school settings are less studied, and SIFT as a named four-step package has been evaluated less than its lateral-reading core.

Cautions
  • SIFT tells you about the source and the state of coverage, not the truth of a genuinely new claim. For breaking events there may be no better coverage yet; the right output is "not known yet".
  • Search results can themselves be manipulated on topics with little reliable content (data voids). If the first page of results is all from one kind of source, change the search terms before trusting it.
  • "Find better coverage" is not "find agreeable coverage". If you only accept the check when it matches your view, you are doing motivated reasoning with extra steps.
  1. Caulfield, M. (2019). SIFT (The Four Moves). Hapgood (author's blog), 19 June 2019
    The original statement of the Stop, Investigate, Find, Trace routine.
  2. Caulfield, M., & Wineburg, S. (2023). Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online. University of Chicago Press
    Book-length treatment of SIFT and lateral reading with worked examples.
  3. Brodsky, J. E., Brooks, P. J., Scimeca, D., Todorova, R., Galati, P., Batson, M., Grosso, R., Matthews, M., Miller, V., & Caulfield, M. (2021). Improving College Students' Fact-Checking Strategies Through Lateral Reading Instruction in a General Education Civics Course. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 6, 23
    Quasi-experimental evidence that instruction in these moves increases lateral reading and accurate source assessment.
  4. Wineburg, S., Breakstone, J., McGrew, S., Smith, M. D., & Ortega, T. (2022). Lateral Reading on the Open Internet: A District-Wide Field Study in High School Government Classes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(5), 893-909
    Field evidence that a short curriculum improves students' evaluation of online sources.
Last reviewed

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