Fake news, propaganda, and plain old lies : how to find trustworthy information in the digital age

Are you overwhelmed at the amount, contradictions, and craziness of all the information coming at you in this age of social media and twenty-four-hour news cycles? Fake News, Propaganda, and Plain Old Lies will show you how to identify deceptive information as well as how to seek out the most trustworthy information in order to inform decision making in your personal, academic, professional, and civic lives. - Learn how to identify the alarm bells that signal untrustworthy information. - Understand how to tell when statistics can be trusted and when they are being used to deceive. - Inoculate yourself against the logical fallacies that can mislead even the brightest among us. Donald A. Barclay, a career librarian who has spent decades teaching university students to become information literate scholars and citizens, takes an objective, non-partisan approach to the complex and nuanced topic of sorting deceptive information from trustworthy information.

• Preface p. ix
• Acknowledgments p. xv
• 1 Credible Information: Why It Matters, What Are Its Limitations p. 1
• 2 Fake News as Phenomenon: (Almost) Nothing New under the Sun p. 29
• 3 Tricks of the Trade: Techniques That Lower Your Information Guard p. 57
• 4 Logical Fallacies: More Tools of Deception p. 91
• 5 Evaluating an Information Source: Nine Essential Questions Everyone Should Ask p. 101
• 6 Power in Numbers: Negotiating the Statistics Minefield p. 117
• 7 Scholarly Information: Identifying, Evaluating, and Understanding It p. 147
• 8 Help Is Where You Find It: Resources for Evaluating Information p. 181
• Final Thoughts p. 195
• Notes p. 199
• Index p. 213
• About the Author p. 227