Fact-Checking Toolset for Claude (or a start towards what "SIFT with AI" might look like)

I made a custom project with instructions that aid a contextualization process. It's not for the novice, but it's pretty cool.

Claude has always been a favorite of mine in the AI space, but its lack of search was a bit of a roadblock. Now that it has search, I built a custom project that assists a contextualization process (or “fact-checking” if that’s what you want to call it).

I keep saying in the video below that I’ve speed it up “3 or 4 times” — but I checked and it’s only 2.5 times which gives you a sense of what you can do if you are accomplished at this sort of thing and using this for assistance. The goal here is to put together a quick draft that will then be more deeply reviewed and edited.

I am fully aware this is not for novices! I’m able to go fast partially because I spent over a decade doing quick contextualization of things online with search. So what I’m doing here is taking a practice honed over a decade and seeing what it means to keep the search but bring an LLM into my process. Kind of one of my projects for the next year — “What is SIFT, but with an LLM involved?” I think I’ve made some headway.

I am putting the draft output below. The whole process to produce it was under 15 minutes, which is very good for this sort of thing. The structure is an extension of a format I used to use for teacher examples for SIFT. The core context is what a student would ideally discover. In this case a student that would be able to get all this context would have a high degree of mastery (well beyond your average undergrad).

The expanded context is the sort of thing I used to give teachers to help them generate ideas for classroom conversation: the backstory on how it was shared, what the deeper story was, and some directions to take the discussion if you wanted to do a deeper dive.

(And just in case it’s not clear — no, Claude will not work this way out of the box; I’ve got a 1700 word instruction set in a project file that guides its behavior here, plus a 500 word text expansion shortcut that provides the output format. I’ll figure out over time whether it is worth sharing those here or somewhere else).

Output

Core Context [DRAFT]

• This vintage advertisement is often shared online as a curiosity showing how beauty standards have changed dramatically, with the slogan "I have plenty of dates since I've put on 10 pounds" contrasting sharply with modern weight-loss focused advertising (Rare Historical Photos).

• The advertisement is authentic, dating specifically to 1935, and was produced by the Ironized Yeast Company of Atlanta, Georgia to market their weight gain supplements primarily to women (Granger Archive).

• Ironized Yeast was brewer's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) combined with iron, promoted as helping thin women gain "5 to 15 pounds" quickly, with advertisements claiming this would increase their social popularity and romantic prospects (Tony's Musings).

• The Federal Trade Commission issued a cease and desist order against the Ironized Yeast Company in 1934 for making false health claims about their product's ability to cure various conditions including indigestion, nervousness, and skin eruptions (Gender and Sexuality).

• The advertisement reflects Depression-era beauty standards when thinness was associated with poverty and malnutrition, while a fuller figure signaled health and prosperity, marking a cultural shift from the slim flapper aesthetic of the 1920s (Witness2Fashion).

Expanded Context [DRAFT]

What does this appear to be/how is it described online? Online, this image is typically presented as a shocking or amusing example of how drastically beauty standards have changed over time. It's frequently shared in collections of "bizarre vintage advertisements" or as evidence of the cultural shift in body image ideals, with websites emphasizing the stark contrast between the 1930s promotion of weight gain versus today's weight loss industry. The advertisement is often described with a tone of incredulity, highlighting phrases like "I have plenty of dates since I've put on 10 pounds" as particularly jarring to modern sensibilities (Rare Historical Photos). Some sites contextualize it within the Great Depression, while others simply present it as an oddity without historical context (Bridgeman Images).

What does this mean to its primary audience/audiences online? For contemporary online audiences, this advertisement serves multiple purposes depending on the viewer. For those interested in media literacy and advertising history, it provides a striking example of how marketing tactics exploit cultural anxieties across different eras. For body positivity advocates, it offers historical evidence that beauty standards are culturally constructed rather than objectively determined. Fashion historians value it as documentation of 1930s aesthetic ideals, while general audiences often engage with it as a curiosity or conversation starter about changing social norms. The advertisement frequently evokes surprise or amusement, as it contradicts the dominant modern narrative that thinness has always been the beauty ideal in American culture.

What is the actual story or deeper background? The Ironized Yeast advertisement from 1935 emerged during the Great Depression when proper nutrition was a widespread concern and thinness was often associated with poverty and malnutrition. The Ironized Yeast Company, headquartered at 619 Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia, marketed a product that was essentially brewer's yeast (rich in B vitamins and chromium) combined with iron (Kenan Research Center). Beyond weight gain, the company made extensive health claims, promising to cure conditions ranging from constipation to skin problems, which eventually attracted regulatory scrutiny. In 1934, the Federal Trade Commission issued a cease and desist order against the company for these exaggerated claims, determining the product only provided benefits in cases of specific vitamin B or iron deficiencies (Gender and Sexuality). The advertisements were part of a sophisticated campaign that exploited social anxieties, particularly among women, by suggesting that being thin directly correlated with being unpopular and unattractive, while using pseudo-scientific language to add credibility (Life and Death in 1938).

What does the actual picture/graphic look like? The authentic 1935 advertisement shows a black and white photograph of a woman in a halter-style bathing suit, posed to display her figure, with the headline "I HAVE PLENTY OF DATES SINCE I'VE PUT ON 10 POUNDS" prominently displayed in a bordered box at the top. Below this is the tagline "Skinny? New easy way adds 5 to 15 lbs. quick." The layout includes extensive advertising copy about the product being made from "special brewers' ale yeast imported from Europe" and being "ironized with 3 special kinds of iron." Two silhouetted male figures appear at the bottom of the frame, looking up at the woman, reinforcing the message that weight gain leads to male attention. The advertisement concludes with a money-back guarantee and a special free offer, providing the company's full address: "Ironized Yeast Company, Inc., Dept. 125, Atlanta, Ga." The Bridgeman Images watermark appears at the bottom of this particular reproduction (Granger Archive).

What is (some of) the larger discourse context?

• The advertisement exemplifies how commercial interests exploit and reinforce cultural body ideals, showing that these standards are malleable and often respond to broader socioeconomic conditions rather than objective measures of health or beauty.

• This artifact demonstrates the historical use of pseudo-scientific language and imagery in health product marketing, a practice that continues today in different forms and remains a challenge for media literacy and consumer protection.

• The regulatory action against Ironized Yeast illustrates the ongoing tension between commercial free speech and consumer protection in advertising, particularly around health claims, which continues to evolve with changing media landscapes and scientific understanding.

What is (some of) the larger topical context? Great Depression advertising, 1930s beauty standards, weight gain supplements, historical body image, Federal Trade Commission regulation, nutritional supplements history, gender-targeted advertising, cultural beauty ideals, advertising ethics, socioeconomic influence on beauty standards

Sources Table (The Result Set)

Had to do this as an image, sorry. But I wanted to show you how I have my project organize my table. Basically when contextualizing we are trying initially to find stuff with a high degree of specificity and a high degree of reliability. I have it summarize each link according to what it does for our explanation. For search nerds, I have it privilege sources that have a reliability of four or above unless they have high specificity or are the only source for a particular tidbit. As with all things AI, the way it follows these rules is fuzzy, but it mostly works.

I don't show it here, but if you rerun the sources table during a session (ask it to ‘iterate’), it will specifically look for more instances of the minority opinion in your set, to make sure you're not falling into confirmation bias, e.g. it will look for sources that say the date was not 1935, and show some leeway on the reliability score. I’m still tuning this a bit so it doesn’t get into data void problems, but I’m close.