The SIFT Moves help you evaluate a claim by quickly putting it into broader context.
This "lateral reading" approach tends to be faster and easier than deeply engaging with a source, only to realize that the source wasn't worth your time. The SIFT Moves are a way of thinking smarter, not harder.
SIFT is an acronym that stands for:
- Stop
- Investigate the source
- Find better coverage
- Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context
This model was developed by Mike Caulfield, a digital literacy expert at Washington State University Vancouver. You can read more about its development in "Don't Go Down the Rabbit Hole". (In case you can't immediately read that story, remember that everyone at CWI has a pass to access the NY Times!)
You can read our explanation of the SIFT Moves in this Google Slide presentation.
If you want additional examples, here are some of the resources made by Caulfield. They have videos and specific strategies:
- SIFTing through the Pandemic has examples focused on COVID19.
- Check, Please! has a wider range of examples.
- Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers is the online book Caulfield wrote before he condensed the moves and habits into the "SIFT" acronym. It has many examples and uses a slightly different vocabulary. For instance, there he talks about "going upstream" instead of "tracing the claim"—but it's essentially the same ideas and strategies.