•Awareness of how you engage with the digital world

•How you find meaning in the information you discover

•How to articulate what kind of information you require

•How to use information ethically

•Understand the role you can play in the communication in your profession and

•How you evaluate information for credibility and authority.

First: understand the problem. What I’ve outlined here is a good start. You now know what to look for, and though it might be a bit of work, you know what you need to do before accepting something as accurate.

Second: be skeptical. Always. Perhaps even more importantly: don’t believe something just because you happen to agree with it. This is really, really hard. Keeping an open mind on all issues, even to the point of accepting that you might be wrong, is critical to knowing what you can and cannot trust or believe.

Third: do the work. When faced with a piece of information you’re not certain of, if it’s at all important, do the legwork to confirm or invalidate it. Trace the sources back. Is it a single source repeated everywhere, or have different sources arrived at the same conclusion? (And if it’s not worth the time to confirm it, don’t spread it as fact. In fact, don’t spread it at all.) This is a skill, and one well worth developing.

Fourth: build a network of more-trusted sources. Note I’m not saying “trusted” in an absolute sense, I’m saying more trusted. A critical component of being skeptical is, as I said, being skeptical of sources with which you already have some level of trust. This will actually happen naturally as you vet information in the prior step. You’ll see the same sources come up as more trustworthy than others, and those can rise to the top of your list.