The Fact Checker's Bible A Guide to Getting It Right

The first book of its kind,The Fact Checker's Bibleis the essential guide to the important but often neglected task of checking facts, whatever their source. Today, everyone is overwhelmed with information that claims to be factual. But even the most punctilious researcher, writer, student or journalist--not to mention the lazy or deliberately mendacious ones--can sometimes get it wrong. So checking facts has become a more pressing task. But how to go about it? The Fact Checker's Biblecovers: *Reading for accuracy *Determining what to check *Researching the facts *Assessing sources: people, newspapers and magazines, books, the Internet, etc. *Checking quotations *Understanding the legal liabilities of getting it wrong *Looking out for and avoiding the dangers of plagiarism For everyone from students to editors to journalists, the methods and practices outlined inThe Fact Checker's Bibleprovides both a standard and a working manual for how to get the facts right. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Sarah Harrison Smith has been a fact checker at The New Yorker and head of checking at The New York Times Magazine, where she is now editorial manager. She lived in New York City.