Verifying the truth is a must

In today’s era where technological advancement is undeniably common and a universal necessity. The way of communication became a lot easier than before.

 Since the information age began, accessing a vast amount of information all over the world became easy. We learn a lot by just searching through the internet and we don’t need to experience or be physically present in a place where the information came from. All we have to do is open our laptops, personal computer, and/or cellphones then type the necessary words we need, and voila! The information is there.

However, this is where the problem takes into action, because the internet is highly exposed to everyone, information can be easily altered which might lead people into absorbing, and accept incorrect information. Moreover, they might also share the incorrect ideas they caught from the internet with others. Hence it is important to each of us to know how to analyze, disseminate, criticize, check the credibility and reliability of both the arguments or statements or claims and the author itself so that we can be sure that the information we see on our screen is legit and therefore can be used and accept.

How to determine if a site is legit and can be reliable?

Knowing the credibility and reliability of the site is essential because if the site is credible and reliable then we can expect at least that the information they gave or published was accurate. The problem is some readers do not spend time verifying the credibility of the website leading to absorbing incorrect data. To avoid misleading data, we as a researcher must check these important factors:

·         The author

Just like in a newspaper where the author’s name is listed together with his/her article is a good sign that the author is credible because he/she is willing to expose his/her name for that piece of information that he/she convey. Though it doesn’t necessarily mean that data from an anonymous person isn’t legit. However, we must understand that giving a single fracture of information can sometimes cause a person’s life that is why information with the author’s name along with it is considered credible.

·         The date

The date when the information or data happened or the scholarly works were conducted is very crucial in verifying the credibility of the source. In conducting research or thesis, the dates are very important because it signifies if the information was still relevant or not. Now, in terms of identifying whether the data is true or not, checking the dates is one of the best options because if you have the dates, then you can check whether there are some incidents or events that really happened at that time. You can also check if there was indeed a person in this name or that name whatsoever; who is present in that place during that particular time.

·         Sources

Just like us, websites especially credible ones cite the sources of their information so, please find time to check if they do because if not, then something is wrong with that site.

·         Domain

Now, this is important because I noticed some people including me sometimes are just diving through the internet and gathering information without even checking the domain. A domain is the extension of the URL of a certain website such as .com, and .net which can be bought according to my source. So, check if they contain these domains.

For more information and more explanation of these factors, you can visit my source here!

Getting to know the credibility and reliability of the site does not guarantee the accuracy or credibility of the data, so, we still have to verify whether the presented information is the truth. As far as I’m concerned, given that I’ve done academic research more than once, I suggest that we should know how to perform cross-referencing. This might sound difficult and will consume lots of effort and time but this technique is very crucial in identifying the truth. Although cross-referencing allows other presented facts to support the idea or information of the current document it does not alter the information itself rather, it magnifies the strength of truthfulness of the data.

Benefits of this discussion

This discussion does not only revolve in a narrow scope like academic papers or scholarly works. The essence of this topic is simply allowing the readers to realize how important it is to first verify the information before accepting it and spread to everyone.

Take the invasion of fake news as an example, this cancer vastly penetrate society and quickly corrupt the minds of the people not just because of the technological advancement where generating fake information using fake accounts or bots can be done easily but also because people are lacking in terms of knowledge and capability of identifying the truth. Some do not lay at least a single minute to verify the truthfulness of the information they receive.

In short, cross-referencing is just a matter of reading other resources to verify whether the information you have is factual or not. For instance, how would you know if the political news today about the Marcos’s are true? How sure are you that the news presented by the media is nothing but the truth? It is yours to answer but please, this is not about political aspects but rather a simple example only.

Note:

Read and read and read before accepting any information either from credible media or person or any other sources you may have because information can be easily altered and tampered with just to favor one side and cast out the other one. Enlighten ourselves because we can’t trust words that can be easily altered by other people. Make use of our intellectual capability and judge the information by ourselves.