Lying Liars Lying, Reprehensible Retractions, & Oopsy Oh No’s: Lateral Reading & Research Clues for Research Sources. A lively discussion about taking a closer look at your research...with research.

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Researching The Research 

Source evaluation in research is not a passive activity.  It also requires research and critical thinking. This three lens of information evaluation require that you look at research critically - with research.

SUGGESTED RESEARCH FOR ACADEMIC ARTICLES

Google Search  - Search for information on authors, researchers and/or organization. Search titles of journals, newspapers, and magazines. Read their about statements and mission. Do you find a scandal, retractions, or fact checks related to the authors, publishers, or title of source?

Look at this Google basic search:

"Prenatal Cocaine Exposure Upregulates BDNF-TrkB Signaling" AND retraction.

Google Scholar - Use a title search to find how many times a scholarly article has been cited. Look at the works that cited your source. Do you see a pattern or anything interesting? 

For the retracted article in Google Scholar despite the easy to find retraction it has been cited 20x since 2016.

If we look at all 12 versions of it, we see it lives on Academia.edu. Gale, CUNY's Academic Works, Harvard, and EBSCO. Two of those are library databases. Two of those are well known university's academic repositories.

Google Scholar Metrics . - Use to search the ratings of a scholarly journal.  A scholarly article in a journal with higher metrics is considered to have more authority.

PLOS ONE statistics and details on Google Metrics.

• • h5-index:212
  • h5-median:294

• • #7 Life Sciences & Earth Sciences (general)
  • #8 Health & Medical Sciences (general)
  • #10 Life Sciences & Earth Sciences
  • #10 Health & Medical Sciences

Retraction Watch. - If research or a scholarly article has been found to be wrong, that information is not found in the article you may have found. Check the title, author(s), and title of scholarly article in this database to see if the paper was retracted. Search their database here. 

How to use the Retraction Watch database to search titles and also authors:

Paperity - Useful for finding news, reviews, letters to the editor, and other information about author(s), journals, organizations, and articles. 

Semantic Scholar.- This is an AI powered research tool for scientific literature. It has a more detailed citation analysis than Google Scholar. It shows hidden connections between research. 

NON-ACADEMIC SOURCES

Does the article cite information from other sources? If so, look them up using Google. 

Search for article, author, and title if available. 
Check the context of the information when you find it. 
Does that author cite other information? Review links or search for that information.
Find where the original information exists. Sometimes information and facts may shift when handled by multiple entities. 
Read laterally, that is, search for other sources of the same information. Look for higher quality platforms and outlets. 

This fast practical Buzzfeed fact checker video shows some of these methods.

Media Bias Check Sources. - This is an article describing different ways to find bias in newspapers, magazine articles, and other platforms. 

Search Politifact, home of the Truth-O-Meter. 

Look at Snopes.  In their 20 years, they have become a well regarded go to source for all types of internet truths and untruths. They also show their work. 

Factcheck.org works on statements make in the political sphere. One of their main ways of tracking down information besides transcripts and videos is to contact people. They rely on primary sources. 

RAND has a detailed list of fact verifications including video tools.