Hello, friends! Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writers’ Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Jennifer Lane, Jenni Enzor, Renee Scattergood, Rebecca Douglas, Lynn Bradshaw, and Melissa Maygrove. Are you a writer? Do you feel insecure? Well, then this is the support group for you! Click here to learn more and to see a list of participating blogs.
I have a problem. I write a blog about space (or rather, I’m supposed to be writing a blog about space). That requires a lot of research, and I do most of my research here on the Internet. But it turns out that people tell lies on the Internet, or if they don’t lie outright, they tell half-truths, or quarter-truths, or one-eighth of the truth, or they offer alternative truths, or they misremember things they learned were true in grade school, or they dumb down the truth so much that it no longer resembles the truth.
Misinformation is everywhere. Misinformation about space, science, and technology? Check, check, and check. Early in my blogging journey, I made a promise to myself: I promised that, to the very best of my abilities, I would not make the spread of misinformation worse. I’m only one blogger, so there’s only so much I can do, but I promised I would not make this problem worse. Not on my blog, not if I could help it! So before I’d share a space fact on my blog or on social media, I’d stop and fact check it, and if I came across any space news that sounded super juicy, extra awesome, and extremely clickbait-worthy… I’d fact check that even harder.
But the sea of misinformation is growing deep, and wading through it is becoming increasingly arduous. Fake research papers are getting harder for me to spot, and sources of information that I used to trust I now find questionable. I succumbed briefly to the temptation of A.I., until I realized how it was slowly and subtly leading me astray. I’m at the point now where I’m scared to post anything on my blog, because I’m not sure if my fact checking is enough, and I still don’t want to break my promise. I still do not want to contribute to the further spread of misinformation.
So what am I going to do? Fact check everything even harder than ever, I guess. Do less research online and try to rely, instead, on books, science magazines, and peer-reviewed journals. If I still have doubts about the topics I write about, I can talk about those doubts, and if I find out later that I made a mistake, I can always correct that mistake—but also, I can call more attention to my own mistakes, to make sure that you, dear reader, get the updated and corrected information.
I still love space. Despite all the headaches my research process has caused me lately, I still love space, and I still want to share my love of space with others. I do not want to spread misinformation. That would be unacceptable. But to stop writing about space, to stop blogging about space all together, out of fear that I might miss something? Out of fear that I might make a mistake? That would be unacceptable, too.
i-love-space.com 
Hi,
I believe using only the internet to research your book can be dangerous. When I research any book I write, I will either buy one or two ebooks from people who specialize in that area or go to a library that has an online lending department and borrow the book.
Wishing you all the best.
Shalom shalom
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Yeah, I need to rely more on books. It’s not that I was using the Internet only. I was reading books, too, but I think I need to do that more and rely on online sources less.
I gave up on my local library a while ago. They just don’t have much on space exploration. But maybe it’s time to give them another chance.
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Yes, you need to fact-check everything these days.
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Yeah. In some cases, it’s easier said than done, but when you can fact check something, it’s best to do it.
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My approach is to cite my source for any significant information, and own up to it if I accidentally pass on bad info.
But a lot of care is required when citing individual papers. You said it yourself a few years ago. Academic papers are a conversation, and citing one particular paper is just a brief snapshot of that conversation. I saw someone recently point out that most of the conclusions in individual papers are wrong, but most of the info in textbooks is right. That’s been my experience for a long time.
So keep writing, but realize you’re human, and anyone who expects you to not be is more interested in arguing than learning.
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Thanks, friend. I appreciate that.
I started reading academic papers mainly to fact check news articles. So many times, the news says “a new research paper says X, Y, and Z,” but then you read the actual paper and it says none of that stuff. And I get the most out of research papers when I can read a few that are direct responses to each other. Reading papers that are indirect responses to each other (i.e., scientists being passive aggressive) can be fun, too.
I hadn’t thought about turning to textbooks as a resource, but that’s something I might look into. A few years back, I picked up a used college textbook on astrobiology, which was pretty useful. Textbooks get super expensive, of course, but they’re not so bad if you can get them used.
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For used textbooks, I’ve found if you’re willing to go before the current edition, the price can be pretty cheap. Even a ten year old neuroscience textbook answered a lot of questions I was never able to get answered with the popular books. Popular science books can be useful too, but you have to watch out for those with an agenda.
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The last two popular science books I read really let me down. In one of them, the author flat out admitted he hadn’t researched the topic for one chapter, and the other one told some anecdotal stories that, after a quick Google search, I discovered were mere urban legends.
But this used textbook idea is making a lot of sense to me. I will definitely follow up on that.
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It’s not like you are affecting the future of space travel! Check all you can and then just post. And don’t trust AI – I have found it wrong more often than right.
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I guess that’s true, though I still don’t want to spread misinformation if I can help it. It may not affect the future of space travel much, but it will affect my conscience.
A.I. kind of lulled me into a false sense of security. It actually got a lot of things right at first, but then I caught it making some pretty silly mistakes (confusing Fahrenheit and Celsius, for example). I’ve been avoiding using it ever since.
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I have really struggled with this sentiment, myself. No matter how confident I am that I’ve done reasonable research and am sharing defensible data from credible sources, there’s just so much nonsense out there that just by participating in “the internet” I can’t help but feel like I’m contributing to it. Between AI and the general trends of the attention economy (get engagement at all costs…) it’s just really discouraging to try and use the same online spaces to make genuine community these days.
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Yes, exactly! I just want to take my ball and go home sometimes.
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I fact check everything for my stories (and even for my own learning). You can’t trust most web sources at face value, not even AI gets it right. AI has been a useful tool for me in my research, but I do not trust its own respinses; I check the sources it draws from. For me, AI is more of an assistant to researching than a research tool itself alone. But with generative AI putting factual information in danger, it seems, there may just be a time when we have to go back to physical libraries and resources.
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Sounds like you have a good relationship with A.I. You’re using it responsibly. I think I was using it responsibly at first, too, but then the A.I lulled me into a false sense of security, and I started trusting it too much. Based on that experience, I think I should quit it cold turkey.
I’m thinking about giving my local library a visit. I haven’t been there in years, because their science and space exploration resources were pretty slim. But maybe it’s time to give them another chance.
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Writing about the process – maybe a “fact” you discovered wasn’t quite right, or not quite up to date (Staying up-to-date! Another challenge) and posting corrections may be as valuable as a perfect post.
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Oh gosh, yeah. Staying up to date is tough. Especially with Mars. That’s the reason I don’t write a lot of blog posts about Mars.
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James, I empathise with your frustration. You want to write about the subject you love and you do everything you can to ensure that everything is solid fact, but you worry. TBH, the steps you’re already taking, and the additional ones you’re prepared to take, make it clear that you are as far from being the problem with regard to misinformation as it is possible to be.
All any of us bloggers can do is to do the best we can with research and fact checking at the time, and if it turns out that a source was incorrect or misleading, to correct it when we find out.
That said, AI is adding a whole additional layer…
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Thank you, friend. I really appreciate that vote of confidence!
A.I. lulled me into a false sense of security for a while. I’d fact check it, and it would turn out to be right pretty consistently. So consistently that I stopped feeling the need to fact check it. And then it said some things that really, really tripped me up.
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Research isn’t what it used to be. Now, you have to research your research. Do you know about the toast hoax- search Alan MacMasters hoax. I think talking about your doubts is a good step to take. The fact that you’re being honest about doubts puts you ahead of the rest who don’t take the time and just go with what they have regardless.
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I hadn’t heard about Alan MacMasters before, but I’ve heard of similar things. I’m actually kind of glad that hoax happened. It’s a good example of how bad the Internet can be.
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