The End (of Verified)

The book that we’ve been reading throughout the past few weeks is finally done, including both the introduction and the conclusion. What a good read! I actually thoroughly enjoyed Verified. If you somehow are someone who is not part of our class and are reading this post, I encourage you to read it! Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg write in such a fun and interesting way, and the book is a delightful read. Beyond that of course is that it’s fantastic at letting you know what exactly to look out for on the internet. I always viewed myself as competent on the internet, but after reading Verified I feel ready to tackle the world wide web.

At risk of sounding like a second rate amateur book critic writing opinions on a blog (which, I suppose, this isn’t all that different from), I do highly recommend checking it out if you feel unstable about the internet these days.

Now, on to the actual contents that I read this week, Chapters 10, 11, and the Epilogue. The focus of these chapters was a bit different from previous weeks. Other chapters had been about what to analyze, how to SIFT (if you’re not sure what that means, I am once again pointing at the book with a blinking neon arrow) through each piece of information, and how to quickly determine if something is nonsense or not. Chapters 10 and 11 focused more on the emotional aspect that has either been neglected throughout the book or portrayed as merely a negative thing.

Here though, Caulfield and Wineburg discuss how emotion lets you know what is important to you in a story. What do you feel surprised at? What do you care about about what’s being reported? If you can identify that, you can also identify which piece of information you actually want to fact check. As a random example, if you hear a story about someone who hiked the Appalachian Trail during the dead of winter, the part that’s surprising (at least to me) is not hiking the famous trail but doing so during the coldest part of the year! The AT is not for the faint of heart when the weather is good, and it’s through mountains! My surprise at that indicates that I should be fact-checking the timeline of when this person trekked through, not that they did the trek at all. And, if I find out that they didn’t backpack that entire way at all and it was just a tall tale, I will still have gotten my answer.

But enough about one of the better books I’ve had to read for a class. I’m currently working on finishing up my Verification Quest project which I am somewhat hilariously behind on. The good news is that I am not busy this weekend. The bad news is that I am hilariously behind on it. Oops! But it is getting done slowly but surely. I’m excited to incorporate an interview I did with a friend into my document. If it all comes together in the way that I would like it to, I think it’ll really be something special.

After (and while) that gets done, I’m excited to get started on the Interactive Nonfiction project with group members that I feel very confident in. For once, I’m excited about a group project! How wonderful that is, and I do say that without a trace of sarcasm or irony. Next week you’ll get an update about that, and we’ll see how far along we have come.