In high school, all my teachers drilled this following phrase into us when we were required to conduct research for any class project or research paper: “Make sure your sources are credible.”

The internet is a vast universe, accessible to a majority of the world’s population. This is both a pro and a con to the information found and spread online. With free website creation tools, anybody has the ability to voice their opinion on their own websites.

However, the most critical issue arises when people can’t separate fictitious, non-credible sources from factual, credible sources. The first step in determining this is to critically evaluate the article and the way in which it presents information. This, in essence, is media literacy. Media literacy asks you to critically asses the information with which you are presented and evaluate it based on your prior knowledge or further research.

The printing press was the first piece of innovation to speed up the process of disseminating information. Since then, it’s only become faster. Today, our media landscape consists of ever-increasing news channels and sources of information, and ever-changing uses for mobile applications.

Some notable changes include receiving news primarily from Facebook, and now, the Snapchat ‘Discover’ section. Who would have thought we’d get news straight from our social media platforms, other than Twitter?

Media literacy skills have become critical in today’s media landscape. It has become even more important to understand how to separate fictitious sites from credible sites to avoid being misinformed and equipped with fictitious knowledge.

I’ve seen it one too many times: a Facebook friend shares a post from a news source without checking the credibility of the source. Many times, the source is not credible and the information is misleading and biased. The point isn’t to ignore these sources, it is to read and critically evaluate them against credible sources. Moreover, comparing one viewpoint to another can help to further inform your knowledge, understanding and viewpoint of certain issues. Critical analysis of websites and the information with which you are presented will help you stay vigilant when you receive information from any source.

Here are five essential media literacy skills to remember:

1. Evaluate the website’s URL
2. Read the full article for bias, tone, the facts and information presented and whether or not the article presents opposing views
3. Conduct a cursory search of the issue to ensure the article is factual
4. Do additional research on the topic
5. Compare the article to sources with different opinions and views