How do you detect and avoid a hoax? It’s difficult, and the better the hoax the tougher it is to detect. There is not a single “answer” or “trick” or “secret.”
Hoaxes come in all shapes and sizes, but they employ the same basic elements—a perpetrator (with a motive), a target constituency (with an unmet desire), and a fabrication (with a provenance). Hoaxes also follow a common lifecycle—they play off their setting, are introduced or “discovered,” grow through comment and debate, and then endure or fade […]
Do you have a 19th-Century Latter-day Saint ancestor who did not keep a journal? Learn about strategies and sources for researching and writing to turn dates and places into rich stories and experiences.
