Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Tuesday.

I had a conversation with an acquaintance the other day about how it can sometimes be challenging to tell the difference between a legitimate news story and a fake one.

We are constantly bombarded on social media with articles, photos and videos posed as real, and on first glance some of them may seem believable. There are articles citing one person as saying such and such, and other articles saying contrary. Which do you believe?

Do you know how to check out the truth of the information you read?

I came across a website for the International Fact-Checking Network and discovered that Monday was actually International Fact-Checking Day, a day where people rally together to encourage “more facts in politics, journalism and everyday life,” according to the organization’s website.

I looked through the website, at factcheckingday.com, and found some great information for people to consider when reading articles. It gave seven quick tips:

• Check the source. Make sure you know where it comes from. Remember the traditional press relies on journalists on the ground and can be penalized if it publishes false information. You should also look for the same news on other sites through a Google “News” search.

• Read the story all the way through and check for sources. Check for offensive words in the text. Offensive words can sometimes creep up in fake news articles.

• Check the author. If the story has a byline, it means the journalist assumes responsibility. You can also check what other articles the person has written and contact them with questions.

• If you have doubts about the accuracy of images or video, ask Google by dragging the image to a Google search box.

• Verify if statistics are correct. Make sure the data is complete. Incomplete data can hide important information.

• Ask yourself whether news you’re reading appeared on sites frequented by people with different ideologies? Was the article a news or opinion article?

• Reach out to fact-checking sites such as FactCheck.org, and Politifact. These types of websites can check for claims that have reached a large audience.

As the International Fact-Checking Network says, fact-checking is not just something only professional fact-checkers can do. Everyone can do their part.

I wish these types of skills could be taught to our children in the schools, who seem to rely on the internet for even more than people of my generation and the generation before did.

I encourage people to check out the validity of the things they find online — and to do so before they continue to share them.