How Can I Make Sure A Published Paper Is Not Providing Misinformation? It's pretty common for an average individual to read some headline quoting a published paper and then only quote that and regard it as true, but when it gets broken down by competent individuals, there ends up being flaws in the methods or other areas. There are things like impact factor that helps, but the average individual wouldn't know about that. Is this misinformation inevitable amongst the general population?