Finding Reliable Information Online When You’re Writing at Work

When you’re writing and need facts, online searches put an abundance of information at your fingertips. But with no centralized editing or verification, the internet can be rife with misinformation.

In business, many people other than journalists and communications professionals are responsible for writing. To avoid including bad information in your presentations, reports or articles, consider how you can be more media literate. Some critical skills include your ability to research carefully, fact check, and think critically.

Why online misinformation is so prevalent

The internet has evolved from being a resource that connects us all to the information we seek, to being a digital form of commerce and entertainment. Opinions come packaged as fact. Data is spouted without research. And unsuspecting readers (and writers) easily become part of the misinformation snowball as it speeds downhill gathering unverified, misinformation, included simply because it supports someone’s points.

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Search engines themselves are multi-billion-dollar ad businesses. Google is in the business of making money. It has employees who work hard and need to be paid. Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, was valued at $400 billion in 2022. If one source’s SEO is better than another’s, it could be near the top of search results, even if the actual information it provides is sketchy. Paid sponsors also show up near the top of your search results.

So, how do you find quality, factual resources? How can you spot misinformation?

1. Consider how and where you search.

   Does your search include full sentences? Librarians suggest using keywords instead. Or, to find more relevant information, try using quotation marks around the phrase, so the search engine finds those words next to each other, such as "quiet quitting." Another how-to tactic: type "site:.edu" in the search bar to limit results to only information from colleges or universities. Where you search matters. Depending on your topic, you can choose a website rather than a search engine. Even within these search results, you’ll want to evaluate the validity of the scholarly source. Is it a well-known academic journal? Is it a university you’ve heard of? Is the  publication date current? Is it peer reviewed? Some website search options:

   • Google Scholar — this site includes peer-reviewed articles, and you can specify time frames if you’re looking for more current information.
   • CORE — this site contains over 200 million open access, peer-reviewed research and journal articles, mostly free.
   • JSTOR — this site has over 12 million academic articles, books and primary sources. You can read most of them free if you have a university connection, or some of them free if you set up an account.
   • Digital Public Library of America — is a site that aggregates metadata — the information describing items — from libraries, archives and museums across the U.S.

2. Has your source been fact-checked?

   The Associated Press and many large news organizations have fact-checking specialists. If you’re using information from these sources, you can assume the information is reliable and quote the news agency or follow any links to the original source.

3. Follow links to the source.

   If you’ve found the perfect statistic to illustrate a point, but the number isn’t attributed to some organization and there’s no link to an actual research entity or reliable (fact-checked) source, choose another piece of data. Anyone can fabricate a number. Responsible writing in any capacity sometimes means overlooking something tempting that fits in perfectly with what you’re communicating.

4. Be cautious of photo manipulation or misattributed quotes.

   When possible, use a quote from someone you can actually speak with and use original images. AI can manipulate photos and videos, so take a pause to ensure that what you’re seeing is real.

Fact or fiction? No matter your role in an organization, responsible writing means ferreting out the facts you need and using your powers of critical thinking to spot misinformation and slow its spread.