Book Review: Verified by Maike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg

In an age of misinformation and an exorbitant amount of new information created daily, we must consider how to teach others to evaluate content specifically.

The Special Libraries Association has a list of core competencies for information professionals. One of those core competencies is Information and Knowledge Resources. One of the elements under that area is “teaching others to critically evaluate information and information sources.”

With that in mind, I want to offer my review of the book Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online by Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg.

Teaching others to evaluate online content is a skill that relates to my recently published post on Critical Thinking and the Role of Special Librarians. Someone must have content knowledge to think critically about a topic. The importance of being well informed will only grow in the age of AI. If you did not read that post, I encourage you to return to it.

The book Verified offers practical skills that align well with the need for content knowledge. It introduces ways of searching on the web that helps an individual verify what they are reading. These skills include the SIFT Method, lateral reading, using Wikipedia, how to use Google well, and others.

It is an easy read with examples and images to support the text. Each chapter ends with key takeaways that summarize the chapter and help you remember what you might want to mention to others.

The postscript for the book discusses generative AI, and posits ideas about what the future may look like for evaluating sources. While that section of the book is short, it provides good items for reflection. As generative AI becomes even more embedded in our lives, I hope the authors consider providing additional practical resources to help us all evaluate AI-produced content.

My department is using it as our book club read this fall. Even though we all have a great deal of expertise on the topic of searching, we are still finding the book helpful. We find it particularly useful when considering how we talk to others about evaluating sources.

If I had to give an overarching review of this book, I would say it should be required reading. It gives practical advice in an easy-to-digest style. Readers of the book will come away more confident in their ability to evaluate what they locate online, and if the skills are applied, readers will “get duped less often”.