Researchers at the Stanford History Education Group did a study and discovered that most of us aren't great at knowing how to find out if information presented as facts are true or not, even trained historians!
So who is skilled at spotting inaccuracies and misinformation? Fact-checkers.
Professional fact-checkers have developed some shortcuts that are useful for all of us to know. One of the most important is to read laterally - that is, to check some basics by consulting other sources before you consider information trustworthy.
Mike Caulfield has written free textbook on how to check facts. In a nutshell, here are four things you can do and one habit to adopt to become better at distinguishing what is factually true. You may not always need to do all four moves - you may find out in the very first step that someone reputable has already determined something is true or false, and then you're done.
An important habit to add to the four moves: Check your emotions.
Some arguments rely on "pushing your buttons" ie. provoking an emotional response which makes you more likely to immediately adopt or dismiss a claim. Instead, try to reason your way through an argument and weigh facts objectively.
For more information, check out Caulfield's free ebook, Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers.
Before trusting a source of information it is always useful to stop and ask, "Who is responsible for this information, and why should I trust them?"
Here are a couple quick considerations for academic writing:
Peer-review is a time consuming process and not all reliable sources of information need that level of scrutiny. If your instructor requires you to use peer-reviewed sources, be sure to verify your article meets that requirement.