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The CORE fact-checking process

What is it?

Every document contains externally verifiable facts. The authors try hard to get them right, but no one is infallible. Therefore fact checkers should do their best to check these facts, and correct them if a mistake has been made.

Why is it important?

  1. We wish to be used as a reputable source.
  2. Our argument proceeds from these facts. If we get the facts wrong, our conclusions may be in error, too.
  3. Even if the conclusions do not rest on the facts, errors of fact undermine the authority of the remainder of the document. Reviewers could argue that, if we get easy-to-check names and dates wrong, how can the arguments be trusted?
  4. Fact checking adds accuracy and precision to documents. Instead of writing ‘someone once said’, we use the fact check to add who said it, and when, and quote them exactly. Rather than writing ‘an article was published that claimed …’, we give a title. Instead of writing ‘millions of people’, we find a source for how many millions. Rather than writing ‘At the beginning of the 1920s …’, we try for the most appropriate precision (‘12.30pm on 1 May 1923’, ‘1–8 May 1923’, ‘May 1923’, or ‘between 1921 and 1923’ will usually be better than ‘the 1920s’).

What is a ‘fact’?

  • We check dates, names, locations, job titles, names of companies.
  • We check quotes, titles of publications, dates of publication.
  • We check historical stories against the source.
  • We check ‘detailed assertions’ by investigating the quality of the research. For example, if slavery were described as having caused 100 million deaths, we should check the validity of the source on which this estimate is based.
  • We do not check the substance of the ebook/text (models, concepts, and so forth).
  • We do not check the numbers in the data files (it has been done already).
  • We cannot check value judgements, but we make sure they are properly attributed.

The standard of proof

Because our authors are experts in their field, our standard is one reliable source. Reliable sources include:

  • primary sources: the original text or a witness account is always better than someone else’s interpretation or quote—but that’s not always possible
  • peer-reviewed papers
  • books published by reputable publishers
  • articles published in well-researched magazines and newspapers (the Economist, FT, WSJ, NYT, the Times, and so on); though, if the articles are based on a source that we can access, use that source instead
  • encyclopaedias and dictionaries with professional editors (Britannica, Oxford Dictionary, and so on)
  • well-researched online archives, for example, from a government, foundation, NGO, or university.

The following are not reliable:

  • Wikipedia. It should not be used as a source because the pages are changed more often than they are edited. Therefore misquotes and misattributed claims often persist for months or years before being challenged. It is also unstable: your evidence might disappear tomorrow.
  • Blogs. They can be useful as a source of links, but not for confirming facts.
  • University departmental web pages for students.

Some useful go-to sources

Peer-reviewed papers and books are the best source. Look in the draft versions of the copy you’re checking if you’re stuck—the authors have occasionally provided links.

  • Wikipedia: While Wikipedia should not be used as a source you can use it to link to reliable sources that the authors have used.
  • Britannica online: Good for historical facts, dates, places, and names. It now accepts user content, but this is checked and approved by professional editors before publishing.
  • Google Books: Very useful to check quotes, dates, and titles by searching for a phrase.
  • Library of Economics and Liberty: Has a libertarian bias in opinion articles, but has a searchable archive of historical books that is very useful for checking quotations, and for biography of past economists.
  • Google Scholar: A very quick route to identify the most-cited source, or a pdf of the original paper.
  • Nobel prizes: Facts, articles, references, and biographical details about winners.

How to lay out a fact check

  1. Take the text of the entire unit, and paste it into a Word or a Google Doc document.
  2. Delete everything except the text you will factcheck. You will likely find between 5 and 15 facts in 1,000 words.
  3. Prepare a spreadsheet with the following column headings:
    • Reference
    • Unit
    • Section
    • Text
    • Source(s)
    • Link(s)
    • Note(s)
    • Last checked
  4. Transfer the sentences to the ‘Text’ column. There should be one item per cell:

    • Make sure that there are no mistakes (for example, spelling, punctuation, spacing) and that sentences are not broken into more than one line of text with a hyphen (as they are in the original text), for example:

      ‘Adam Smith’s Inquiry was publi-
      shed in 1776’
      has a line break noted with ‘-’ which needs to be removed:
      ‘Adam Smith’s Inquiry was published in 1776’
      (note that whether the text is in one line doesn’t depend on the cell size or the length of text)

      ‘GDP in the UK grewby 1% in 2015’
      There is a mistake which needs to be amended:
      ‘GDP in the UK grew by 1% in 2015’

  5. Fill out the ‘Reference’ column by adding sequential numbers to each cell. The number starts with the unit number and three sequential numbers starting from 000, for example, for Unit 2 the first fact is noted as 2000, while for Unit 21 it’s noted as 21000.
  6. Fill out the ‘Unit’, and ‘Section’ columns as appropriate.
  7. When including sources:
    • There must always be a source (if you cannot find the source, add a note in the unit so that we can check with the author).
    • For books and journals (papers) try to use Harvard style for referencing. You can use UCL guidance on Harvard referencing.

    • Newspaper and media articles (for example, Financial Times, the Economist, The Guardian, BBC, and so forth) should follow this format, where possible:

      [Author], ‘[Title of article]’. [Newspaper], [Date as given in newspaper or media].

      For example:
      Prof Peter Marshall, ‘The British presence in India in the 18th century’. BBC History, 17 February 2017

    • When the statement is taken from a non-media website, citing the name of the website, or the organization, as a source will suffice. Do not include the URL. For example, note the source as ‘The World Bank’ not ‘www.worldbank.org’. Use full names, not abbreviations such as WB or WTO.

    • When more than one source is specified, they must be listed in separate lines, for example:

      Encyclopaedia Britannica on Adam Smith

      [start a new line, Alt+Enter on Windows, control+Enter on Mac]

      The Library of Economics and Liberty on Adam Smith

  8. When including links:
    • Whenever possible, there should be a link, preferably to an open-access or readily accessible version of the source. For example, a link to the online PDF of a paper is useful, a link to a book sold on Amazon is not useful.
    • If there is more than one source, links must be listed in separate lines:

    https://www.britannica.com/biography/Adam-Smith

    [start a new line, Alt+Enter on Windows, control+Enter on Mac]

    https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Smith.html

    • In case of multiple sources, there can be more sources than links (but never more links than sources).

  9. You can include notes if you think they will help the reader identify the original piece of information. For example, if you are fact-checking the result of some data manipulation by providing the original data, you can explain to the reader how the data was used:

    ‘The source shows that GDP was $80 bn in 2010 and $88 bn in 2011. So, it grew by 10% in one year, as stated’
    Avoid providing unnecessary information, for example:
    ‘The source confirms the statement’

  10. Include the date when you last checked (or amended) the fact.

To see how a factchecker spreadsheet is correctly laid out, download this file.