When fact-checking (fiction or nonfiction, your document or someone else’s), watch out for restrictive words: always, every, never, only. Inevitably, there will be an outlier.

For example, did you know:

• not all owls are nocturnal?
• not all lizards are cold-blooded?
• not all deserts are hot?
• all tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises?

The best thing you can be as a fact-checker is skeptical. If something doesn’t sound quite right, research it using scientific sources (i.e., not Wikipedia), and if you need to make a change to someone else’s document, cite the source(s).