This course is for anyone author, journalist, commentator, blogger, student, or ordinary citizen who wants to know how to check claims for accuracy.

Instructor marcia yudkin has been a published author for more than 30 years. She has written for national magazines including the New York times magazine, ladies home journal, TWA ambassador, and many others, for big-name publishers like HarperCollins and Penguin and for national public radio (now called NPR). She created the course because she witnessed how humiliating it can be when readers and important industry contacts catch a blogger or author making dumb mistakes, like putting Sydney in Austria rather than Australia or mixing up sudoku (the number game) and seppuku (ritual suicide).

“Fact-Checking Made Easy” consists of 13 practical lessons totaling more than an hour and a half of video instruction. At its heart are three complete now you try it exercises (and another partial one) where you give fact checking a go and then compare your findings with marcia’s answers and analysis. It’s hand-on learning at its best. Besides the video lessons and exercises, you have access to several handouts that make the learning process more convenient.

What will you learn in this course?

• How to create a fact-checking routine that catches errors and inconsistencies
• Where and how to check various kinds of facts including an amazingly helpful, taxpayer-funded free research resource
• The difference between opinions that don’t warrant a fact check and statements
• Pitfalls in getting names and numbers correct
• The importance of recognizing and discounting biased or outdated sources of information
• How not to fall for and pass along hoaxes, baseless rumors, and myths that have already gone around the Internet thirty thousand times
• The kinds of mistakes that run the greatest risk of landing you in legal trouble, and how to avoid those
• The best way to handle it if an error does nevertheless slip by you

As any sort of communicator, avoid loss of face and build credibility. Or become the one who catches others' factual bloopers. It’s fun, it’s practical and it’s important. So sign up for “Fact Checking made easy” today.