Fact Checking: What to do with Irrelevant Facts, Unreliable Sources, or Time-Specific Facts

By Darcy Pattison

As nonfiction authors, we stick to the facts! I am terrified of a book being published with mistakes. But what if the facts are not as straightforward as True or False? 

When kids research a topic for an essay or research paper, one of the hardest tasks is sorting through information to find the relevant information while discarding information that is off-topic or irrelevant to the writing task. It’s the same for those who write nonfiction books for kids. 

Spelling and Location Names Changes Over Time

Every history writer will have a story about conflicting names for a location. For my book, George Washington’s Engineer, I found maps that conflicted when naming a location. Rufus Putnam served as engineer to General Washington during the Revolutionary War. During the frigid winter of 1775-1776, Washington asked Putnam to build a wall to protect troops. Winter soil, however, was frozen making it impossible to dig a foundation to build a fence. Putnam researched ideas and found a solution that allowed the Colonial army to stop the siege of Boston without firing a shot. 

I needed to follow the troop movements around Boston, but it quickly became complicated because place names change rapidly; or, the spelling of the place name varies widely. 

For example, in documents of the time, Lechmere Point is also called Leachmor Point or Leachmoors Point. I had to decide how to handle this. For consistently, I used Putnam’s spelling whenever possible. If he didn’t name a location, then I used the spelling from maps of the time. For purposes of the story, it’s more appropriate to use the name used at the time; but I also try to include today’s name when possible. 

 

Fact Checking Memoirs: When Memory is Faulty

One valuable resource for George Washington’s Engineer was the autobiography of Rufus Putnam. Such documents are available through various sources online.

Putnam wrote that he read Attack and Defense of Fortified Places by the British engineer John Mueller, which inspired his idea of using chandeliers (a structure to hold bundles of sticks) to build a portable wall. I based my story on Putnam’s statements. My fact checker, however, found a copy of Mueller’s book online and the chandeliers are not mentioned. Mueller wrote several books, though, and after checking other titles, she found the chandelier information in Field Engineer by John Mueller. In other words, Putnam had a faulty memory when he wrote his autobiography. He correctly remembered reading a book by Mueller but misremembered the title of the book that inspired his engineering feat. 

 

International Date Line and Time Zones: When Facts are Irrelevant

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake struck off the shore of Japan causing a huge tsunami that killed thousands and damaged a nuclear plant. But the waves from an earthquake travel out in concentric circles, which meant the tsunami traveled across the Pacific Ocean and eventually struck Midway Island. On the island is the largest colony of Laysan albatrosses that includes the oldest known wild bird in the world, Wisdom. In early drafts of my story, Wisdom, the Midway Albatross, I wrote the date as March 10. Why? As the tsunami crossed the Pacific Ocean, it crossed the International Date Line before reaching Midway. 

Because we live on a globe that rotates, we divide the earth longitudinally from the north to south into 24 roughly equal sections, each section representing one hour of the day. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean at roughly 180 degrees is the International Date Line. When you cross the date line traveling east, you subtract a day, and if you cross the line traveling west, you add a day. 

By Japanese time, the tsunami hit at about 2:40 pm on March 11. Midway Island lies just east of the date line. It took about 10 hours for the tsunami to travel across the Pacific Ocean to Midway where it struck at about 11:46 pm, March 10, Midway time, but lasted for four hours into the early morning of March 11. That meant it technically struck Midway the day before the earthquake, which caused the tsunami.

However, the exact times and dates were irrelevant to the story. I used the date, March 11, when the earthquake struck Japan, but just added the ten hours. Trying to explain about the International Date Line was off topic and too complicated for the story. The story just says the tsunami traveled across the Pacific and struck at about midnight, and then “The next morning…”

When you write nonfiction for kids, you need to find the facts. But sometimes, you must interpret changing place names, leave out confusing and irrelevant information, or correct a primary source. 

Children’s book author and indie publisher DARCY PATTISON has written over seventy fiction and nonfiction award-winning books for children. Five books have received starred PW, Kirkus, or BCCB reviews. Awards include the Irma Black Honor award, six NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Books, six Eureka! Nonfiction Honor book (CA Reading Assn.), three Best STEM Book, two Junior Library Guild selections, two CLA Notable Children’s Book in Language Arts, two Notable Social Studies Trade Book, an Arkansiana Award, and the Susannah DeBlack Arkansas Children’s History Book award. She’s the 2007 recipient of the Arkansas Governor’s Arts Award for Individual Artist for her work in children’s literature. Her books have been translated into eleven languages.