How to tell a good source from a confident one

The internet's most dangerous sources aren't the obviously bad ones. They're the confident ones — clean design, authoritative tone, zero accountability. Credibility isn't a vibe; it's a set of checkable facts.

The three questions

A peer-reviewed journal article passes all three: named authors, independent expert review, and disclosure requirements. A think-tank blog post might pass one. A viral thread usually passes none.

• Who wrote it — a named person with credentials you can verify, or “Staff”?
• Who checked it — did anyone besides the author review it before publication?
• Who pays for it — and would the answer change if the conclusion did?

What “peer-reviewed” actually means

Before publication, the paper went to other researchers in the field who tried to poke holes in it — methods, data, conclusions. It's not a guarantee of truth (peer-reviewed papers get overturned all the time), but it means the work survived hostile expert reading at least once. That's more than almost anything else on the web can say.

Rules of thumb by source type

• Journals and university pages (.edu): strongest for claims of fact — cite freely.
• Established newsrooms: good for events and interviews; check whether it's reporting or opinion.
• Government data (.gov): excellent for statistics; note the collection year.
• Blogs and personal sites: fine for perspectives, weak for facts — corroborate before citing.

In Writium, every AI search result carries an academic / reputable / web tag for exactly this reason — but the tags are a starting point, not a verdict. The three questions are yours to ask.