Framing

When someone quotes a relative change ("cuts your risk by 50 percent", "doubles the danger"), ask what the risk was before and after in plain counts out of the same number of people, because the same fact sounds enormous as a ratio and modest as a difference.

Open and read the piece before you react to it or pass it on, because headlines are written to be clicked and shared, routinely claim more than the article supports, and shape what you remember even after you have read the correction in paragraph six.

When you have to correct a falsehood, open with the true statement, mention the falsehood once with a clear warning that it is false, and close by repeating the truth, so that the accurate version gets the prominent positions and the most repetitions.

When you correct a falsehood, put the true statement in the headline, subject line, first sentence, and image, and keep the false claim out of those positions, because most of the audience will see only that part and will carry away whatever it says.

Before engaging with objections, questions, or someone else's summary of your view, say in one or two plain sentences what you actually hold and what you do not, so that the discussion is about your position and not a version built for you.

When you are handed exactly two choices, stop and generate at least one more before choosing, including doing nothing, doing both, doing part, doing it later, or pursuing the underlying goal in a different way.