Comments on: #FridayFact: You Need to Be a Fact-Checker

By: tengrrl

tengrrl — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 10:16:35 +0000

Interesting observations, Josh. I understand your argument, but I don’t think it holds up across the entirety of CS. W3C is the authority on web standards, for instance. Right?

By: Moqi Zhang

Moqi Zhang — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 03:30:45 +0000

As an engineer, I need to be responsible for every content in my project. For example, in a research report, I need double check if the calculation is correct. Meanwhile, I need include all of the citations correctly. Sometimes I don’t pay attention to it because I think I can change it again after I publish, and I have never published reports by myself, so I don’t have some experience with it.
This article is an alert for me.

By: Kelvin

Kelvin — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 04:03:44 +0000

In the field of engineering, asce.org is a very reliable source. Not only because it is an organizational website but because it is managed by the civil engineering community. I have always started my researches with Wikipedia. Though it isn’t very trustworthy, it provides reliable sources just like Tip #3 states.

By: Tyler Schaal

Tyler Schaal — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 12:50:45 +0000

Fact checking is paramount when doing research. If you do not check your facts, you may spread incorrect information which could potentially hurt your reputation, your company’s reputation, or even a future researcher using your work. In Civil Engineering some reliable sources are the American Society of Civil Engineers, United States Geological Survey, and Virginia Department of Transportation. All of these are reliable sources in the profession. USGS would be used more for water resources work, while VDOT would be used for transportation work.

By: Mackenzie+Knox

Mackenzie+Knox — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 00:17:04 +0000

SItes that end in .gov are preferred in our discipline of food science. One of my classes only allows you to cite .gov websites, nothing else. This makes sense as a lot of the work we do is based off government guidelines and regulations.

By: Cassie+Bienert

Cassie+Bienert — Fri, 30 Mar 2018 22:10:12 +0000

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/29352335_1489126237863077_6662147851771787863_o.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=668489b445b6b0a7098d175dd53c48b9&oe=5B338F23

By: Cassie+Bienert

Cassie+Bienert — Fri, 30 Mar 2018 21:43:05 +0000

An important feature of critical thinking is challenging what is “accepted.” Fact checking is a big component of this and therefore we should practice this before graduating into the real world. I also know how embarrassing it is to be proven wrong so to avoid such situations, its always wise to verify your source of information. I usually only cite peer reviewed sources because I know I cannot be refuted if I am backed up by research data. Any source on NCIB, NIH, PUBMED, the FDA, or USDA are acceptable in my eyes. I also agree with the article about wikipedia, I typically start searched there. I typically only rely on these types of sources but occasionally I will use Forbes or equivalent news sources. If I dont use them I try to find another source that backs up what they are saying. If it is something that isn’t that “believable” I always error on the side of caution though.

By: Zachary Cohen

Zachary Cohen — Fri, 30 Mar 2018 21:19:00 +0000

I think that fact checking is very important in today’s world. There’s so many sources for such a variety of information which makes it important for one to be able to back up their facts. In the geography/cartography field, most of the information and data you would use would come from either federal, state, or local governments. In my classes we often work with census data, data from the USDA, or data from the national land cover database (NLCD). But it’s important to always cite these data sources for any work that is done with them.

By: Rachel Cannon

Rachel Cannon — Fri, 30 Mar 2018 19:44:36 +0000

I thought that the first article was very relevant to what is going on today as our society is constantly exposed to so much information on social media and everywhere around us. It also related to the importance of fact-checking to preserve your professional reputation and your company or profession’s reputation. One legitimate source that has many journal publications and professional manuals is the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Other regulations and statistics for different subdisciplines in civil engineering come from national or state departments. For example, the VA Department of Health regulates drinking water quality and the Department of Environmental Quality regulates sanitary sewer systems in Virginia.

By: Josh Detwiler

Josh Detwiler — Fri, 30 Mar 2018 18:16:44 +0000

For Computer Science, the tl;dr is that there aren't trusted sources for anything. The truth is that places like Stack Overflow are starting to become "de facto documentation" for all knowledge in programming (it's quoted over and over on Meta Stack Overflow). The only thing trumping the authoritative quantity of Stack Overflow Q&A articles is the littered official documentation for countless separate tools. And that's part of the problem: Computer Science is growing to be so large that it might soon split into separate fields. Take web development as an example---we might consider the proprietary documentation for Android development to be the trusted source in that sub-field over anything else. For plain Java programming, the first choice might instead be a textbook rather than the Java documentation that Oracle provides (it's more of a personal preference in that particular example). The main source that ties together topics in CS is in fact Stack Overflow in that they specifically address developers' questions with answers from someone else who has the know-how in that area. Moreover, credibility is reinforced through "reputation" so those searching for an answer or a fact-check can quickly gauge what the truth most closely is.