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(T)race it back

Article titled "Millions of palm-size, flying spiders could invade the East Coast, scientists say" — If this image causes an emotional reaction, it's a signal to (s)top and use SIFT before anyone panics. (Turner, B. https://www.livescience.com/joro-spider-invade-east-coast Image credit to University of Georgia)

Imagine yourself in the library, studying for your LIB 1600 quiz when suddenly you get a text from a buddy in New York that says, "Can I move in with you?"

They post a link to an article they saw on Facebook (Turner, 2022). Your social media blows up with posts about the millions of palm-sized flying spiders that will soon visit folks on the East Coast. The caption, "Joro spiders are harmless to people" does little to assuage your friend's fears.

Instead of unpacking the blow torch and panic-shopping for insecticide, you (s)top because you feel the emotional impulse to panic and know that it's a sign that you need to (i)nvestigate.

So you do!

When you check out the Wikipedia page on Live Science, you find that it's a credible, trustworthy site with no controversies or red flags ("Live Science," 2024).

So now you're thinking, "I should (f)ind better sources" — especially because the article was written in March 2022. A lot could have changed since them.

Remembering back to the Try It! exercise under the (f)ind better sources page, you search on Google to find out which sources are talking about palm-sized spiders so that you can assess the credibility of the article's claims.

Google search results showing images of large spiders and links to various sources. — (f)inding better sources on Google pulls up various sources—some are legitimate, and others are alarmist. Scan the list, then (t)rase the claims to the original source. (Source from Google search)

When you look at Google, you notice that FOX Weather (wait, now they're saying palm-sized and venomous spiders?!), Reddit, National Geographic, Scientific American, USA Today, and EarthSky have written similar stories— some of these sources are very credible. They are better sources than your friend's original link.

Rather than falling for the alarmist language, you decide to click on the link that would most likely bring you to the experts on the subject: Scientific American. The Scientific American article cites and links to the actual article from the journal, Physiological Entomology.

You pull up the journal. But before reading it, you (i)nvestigate whether Physiological Entomology is a credible source by looking it up in Wikipedia. It's not there!

But the organization is, under Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society. You learn from the Wikipedia page that the proceedings are peer-reviewed and that Physiological Entomology stemmed from the original Proceedings (Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society, 2023).

You've confirmed that the journal is legitimately peer-reviewed, so you skim the abstract to see whether the details corroborate with the sensationalist headlines from Google — especially because the journal article's title, "Physiological evaluation of newly invasive jorō spiders (Trichonephila clavata) in the southeastern USA compared to their naturalized cousin, Trichonephila clavipes" does not mention an invasion of giant, flying, venomous spiders anywhere.

In fact, the article simply states that these spiders have "a physiology that is more suited to a cooler environment" but "we have no way of knowing if and how far the jorō spider will expand" (Davis & Frick, 2022). The experts in this article aren't panicking, so there's really no need to panic.

But wait, where did the "millions of palm-sized venomous spiders parachuting down to invade us" claim come from? When you (t)race back your steps, you notice that the author from the Scientific American article read the Davis and Frick paper and then came to their own conclusions. They interjected expert information in between their opinionated statements to sound more legitimate.

While yes, there continues to be spread and growth of this invasive species in the U.S., giant clouds made of millions of flying, venomous ("its venom poses no threat to humans" (Turner & Livescience, 2022)) spiders do not exist. There is no need to burn down the East Coast to rid ourselves of these monstrous spiders, and your friend can rest easy knowing that they have an expert fact-checking scholarly genius defending them and the rest of the world from the evil hoards of misinformation.

Davis, A.K., and Frick, B.L. (2022). Physiological evaluation of newly invasive jorō spiders (Trichonephila clavata) in the southeastern USA compared to their naturalized cousin, Trichonephila clavipes. Physiological Entomology, 47(3), 170-175. https://doi.org/10.1111/phen.12385

Live Science. (2024, April 23). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Science

Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society. (2023, May 20). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proceedings_of_the_Royal_Entomological_Society

Turner, B. (2022, March 7). Millions of palm-size, flying spiders could invade the East Coast, scientists say. Livescience. https://www.livescience.com/joro-spider-invade-east-coast

Turner, B. and Livescience. (2022, March 7). Millions of palm-sized flying spiders could invade the East Coast. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/millions-of-palm-sized-flying-spiders-could-invade-the-east-coast/

Closer to the truth

Our example shows how stories can grab someone's attention by distorting bits of the truth. As scholars, we must (t)race the information back to its original source to understand the actual claims.

In some cases, like with AI deepfakes, photos and videos can be manufactured to mislead. The Which Face is Real? website provides examples of just how convincing deepfaked images can be (see the image below), and how difficult it may become for researchers to spot the difference.

Photo of two faces, with the question, "Which person is real?" — Answer

(T)racing things (claims, quotes, and media) back before trusting or reusing information you’ve found helps you understand the source's original context and keeps you from perpetuating overly exaggerated and even false claims. You'll get a better understanding of the topic you are exploring, too.

West, J., & Bergstrom, C. (2019). Which Face Is Real? https://www.whichfaceisreal.com/about.html

(T)race it back strategies

In this section, you'll learn several (t)race it back strategies to help you verify summaries and images from unfamiliar sources and help you find the original source of information.

Click the tabs to learn about each strategy.

Click-through-and-find

Watch this video by Mike Caufield on how you can use this strategy to quickly understand the context around a claim (without reading the entire story). Have a notebook with you (or grab the transcription) and write out any new vocabulary that you encounter:

Click Through & Find video transcription

This strategy is especially useful when you have a summary (AI generated or not), and want to verify the claims and get to the original source. You can think of it as another version of citation chaining backward, but for a different purpose.

Click into the story.
Look for additional context around the claim by using Ctrl+F (or Command+F on a Mac), for your search terms.
Go through the highlighted terms and read the sentences for context.

Check the date

When outdated sources are circulated through social media, it can quickly become misinformation. In our example with the flying spiders, simply checking the publication date (2022) would have saved that friend a lot of unneeded anxiety! Since we haven't had a catastrophic giant spider invasion after the time of publication, you can already call bull💩 on this article.

This strategy is simple: check the date.

Use what you know about the flow of information and citation chaining to get to the most recent information about your topic.

Partial citations

News articles don’t always include direct links to their sources. They may mention the name of a researcher or institution, but not provide a full citation or link.

In the article, “Dinosaur-killing asteroid strike gave rise to Amazon rainforest,” the authors note that their information came from “Mónica Carvalho, from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution” (BBC News, 2021). But, how do you get to the actual article?

Direct quotes - If there are direct quotes from the original article, use the phrase to Google the study. Even if search results don't give you the original source, you may find links to the study other sources. This may not work if the quote comes from an interview with the researchers instead of the study.

Find related information - Look for the researcher's organization, name, article title, or name of the journal. Use this information in Google Scholar, Quick Search, or a subject database. If your search gives you too many results, use your Boolean kung-fu and stealthy keywords to narrow things down.

Get help - Reach out to your Cy-brarian if you still can't find the original article. They know a lot of tricks and databases to get you the information.

In this example, you have a researcher’s name, “Mónica Carvalho,” and their organization, “the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution.”

Searching for the author’s name in Google Scholar brings up over 25 articles they have written. To help narrow it down, you add the "Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution" and the keyword "rainforest" to your search.

Voila!

The article, “Extinction at the end-Cretaceous and the origin of modern Neotropical rainforests,” published in Science appears at the top of the search results. Nice job!

BBC News. (April 2, 2021). Dinosaur-killing asteroid strike gave rise to Amazon rainforest. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56617409

Thorpe, J.R., & DeBianchi, A. (2021, March 1). Here's what happens in your brain when you drink caffeine. Bustle. https://www.bustle.com/wellness/ways-caffeine-can-change-your-brain-according-to-science

Yamato, T., Yamasaki, S., Misumi, Y., Kino, M., Obata, T., & Aomine, M. (2002). Modulation of the stress response by coffee: An in vivo microdialysis study of hippocampal serotonin and dopamine levels in rat. Neuroscience Letters 332(2): 87-90.

(T)race it back image strategies

Misinformation happens when a legitimate image is used in a different context, or when an image is manipulated through Photoshop or AI.

Click on the two tabs to learn techniques you can use with images.

Reverse image searching

How can you tell something has been photoshopped? Or, how can you tell that real photos are miscaptioned or misexplained? Or, what if you have an image with no description at all?

You can put the magnifying glass away — no need to examine image pixels for evidence of photoshopping. Instead, watch Mike Caufield's video on how to find a photo in its original context. Have a notebook with you (or grab the transcription) and write out any new vocabulary that you encounter:

Click Search the History of an Image video transcription

For images without details, you can use either Tineye or Google Image Search to find the original source.

1. Right click on the image
2. Select Copy Image Address if you want to paste the address directly into the Tineye or Google Image search box or
3. Select Search Image with Google to have Google search for you.

Screenshot demonstrating how to perform a reverse image search with Google.

When an image has some description

If you’re lucky, the posted image has a caption and a link to the article.

Rather than trusting the description provided on social media, go to that article and use click-through-and-find to check the claims. If the article seems sus, use the other SIFT moves to (i)nvestigate the source and (f)ind better coverage.

To (i)nvestigate image sources, you can throw the description into Google or a fact-checking site like Snopes to uncover the truth. Remember the Wikipedia trick?

If you add the word "Snopes" at the end of your keywords in the search box, you can see if the site has anything on your source.

Try this technique on the image below. What did you discover?

Social media post of a man behind a giant crocodile skull several feet in length

This is real: Although the fossil is real, the photo was taken out of context.

Searching for "Purussaurus, probably the biggest crocodile ever Snopes" brings up a page on the Snopes website with the following information: "Purussaurus was a giant species of caiman that went extinct millions of years ago, but this photograph does not show a genuine fossile. This is a replica model of a skull belonging to a different extinct crocodile species: Deinosuchus" (Evon, 2021).

Evon, D. (2021, April 20). Is this the largest crocodile ever found? Snopes. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/largest-crocodile-skull/
This is bull 💩: Exactamundo! Nice job, you fact-checking super scholar! What led you to this conclusion? Google? Snopes? Or something else?

Caulfield, M. (2017). Filtering by time and place to find the original. In Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers. https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/chapter/filtering-by-time-and-place-to-find-the-original

CTRL-F. (2020, May 14). Skill: Search the History of an Image [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/KXBDnDLZ2M4?si=tQX1LwDj0yeQ_E-B

Evon, D. (2021, April 20). Is this the largest crocodile skull ever found? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/largest-crocodile-skull/

Key takeaways

Because information can be distorted from secondary and tertiary sources, scholars use (t)race it back strategies to find the original source of information.

These strategies work for both text posts and for posts that have images. In searching for the original source, you will find more appropriate information to help you construct the arguments you make in your assignments.