Students surf the Internet during a media lesson at their school.
If you spend a lot of time on sites like Facebook and Twitter, you have probably made one common mistake: sharing an article without actually reading it.

You definitely are not alone. According to a study released in June by a team of French and American computer scientists, almost 3 out of every 5 links shared on social media have never actually been clicked. People share these articles after only reading the headline.

This is how "fake news" spreads. The best way to stop it is to actually read articles before sharing them. Pay attention to the following warning signs. There are both pro-Democrat and pro-Republican fake news websites. The same rules apply to both.

Determine Whether The Article Is From A Trustworthy Website

ABC News, the television network, has a website at abcnews.go.com. ABC News, the fake news site, can be found at abcnews.com.co.

Both look very similar. But the use of ".co" at the end is a clue that you are looking at fake news. There are other signs as well.

Check The "Contact Us" Page

Some fake news sites do not have any contact information. Real newspapers and news sites have email addresses, phone numbers and even street addresses. The fake "ABC News" does have a "contact us" page. All it shows is a picture of a house somewhere in the country. The real ABC television network is in a 13-story building in New York City.

Examine The Byline Of The Reporter And Ask Questions

An article on the fake ABC News site says a protester was paid $3,500 to protest Donald Trump. It appears to have been written by someone named Dr. Jimmy Rustling. The site says he has won many awards for his work, "including fourteen Peabody awards and a handful of Pulitzer Prizes."

Peabody awards and Pulitzer Prizes are the highest honors in journalism. They are very difficult to win. Doesn't it seem strange that he would win so many? This is a sign that "Dr. Rustling" is not a real person.

Read The Article Closely

Many fake articles have made-up quotes that are hard to read without laughing. In the article on the protest, there is a quote from the creator of Snopes. Snopes is a website that proves when stories on the Internet are not real. The article claims that he approves of it, even though the article describes Snopes as unfair and inaccurate. That should raise red flags. It is not true.

Study The Sources

Sometimes fake articles are started with nothing but a tweet. For example, one fake news story said anti-Trump people were being driven by bus to protest at events. That would have been shocking because it could make the protests seem bigger or more popular than they actually were. It was not true, though. As The New York Times found, this story started with a single bad tweet. The man who tweeted it had just 40 followers.

Few real news stories begin with a single tweet. Most real stories have plenty of other sources of information, too. If the article has no links to sources, it might be fake.

Look At The Ads

Too many pop-up ads on a news site mean you should be careful. Another bad sign is a bunch of ads or links designed to make you want to click on them. Fake news sites often have links to stories about strange rumors or famous people doing wild things. You usually do not find stories like that on real news sites.

Use Search Engines To Double-Check

A Google search often will tell you if a site is no good. Snopes has compiled a guide to fake news sites, which lets you check articles. A website called RealorSatire.com is another way to see if an article is truthful. If you type in an article's URL, it will quickly tell you if the story comes from a fake or unfair news website.

Stopping the spread of fake news begins with you. If it seems too crazy to be true, it probably is. Please think before you share.

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