University of Kwazulu-Natal

Lateral Reading The New Way To Assess Online Information That Your

Bonisiwe Shabane
-
lateral reading the new way to assess online information that your

Are you teaching the most effective strategies to assess the credibility of digital content? Sarah McGrew, a leading expert in civics and digital literacy at the University of Maryland College of Education, hopes that many educators are answering 'yes' to this question. In a digital landscape that is vastly more complex and all-consuming than the one many of today’s educators grew up in, digital media literacy – the ability to assess the credibility of information online... Recent studies show that students across all ages, from middle school to college, struggle to evaluate the credibility of online information (McGrew et al., 2018; Breakstone et al., 2021). In fact, as many as 55% of children under the age of 14 stated that they do not feel comfortable in their ability to recognize false information online. We sat down with McGrew, who shared one essential strategy that educators should have in their digital literacy toolbox: lateral reading.

This involves assessing the credibility of information by leaving the original source to seek outside perspectives about the author of the original source. At a time when concerns about the proliferation of misinformation are top-of-mind for educators nationwide, McGrew shares four steps for practicing lateral reading. One of the best ways to teach lateral reading is to model it, and these steps can be taken by both teachers and students. Step 1: Notice your emotional response to information. McGrew explains that the first step to lateral reading is recognizing when it’s necessary. When you encounter an unfamiliar source or see a claim that evokes an emotional response, McGrew says to take note of this reaction.

For example, reading a post on X or Meta that claims “non-citizens are voting in the election” may evoke feelings of anger or anxiousness. When teachers notice emotions such as these in themselves or in their students, it can be tempting to react quickly. Instead, McGrew says this is an indication that they should take time to investigate the credibility of the source. Questions such as, “How did that make you feel?” or “What did that make you think?” create space for students and teachers to acknowledge their emotional response and to take time to assess the... In 2017, a group of researchers in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University conducted a study in which they asked fact checkers, PhD historians, and Stanford undergraduates to examine the websites of... Each group was asked to evaluate the trustworthiness of the two organizations.

All of the fact-checkers were able to determine that the American Academy of Pediatrics was the legitimate professional organization, while the American College of Pediatricians was actually a cloaked hate group with a hidden... Only 50% of the historians, and 20% of the Stanford undergraduates were able to identify the Academy as the legitimate professional organization. The researchers suggest that the fact-checkers were able to sniff out the cloaked hate group because they didn't just stay on the organizations' websites. They opened new browser tabs and searched for information about each group using Google and Wikipedia. The historians and undergraduates, however, mostly stayed on each organization's website, read the "about" section, and looked for things like misspellings and banner ads to determine trustworthiness. So-called "fake news" websites and organizations with a hidden agenda are getting very good at deception, and, in order to be responsible Internet users, we need to be more vigilant about verifying our sources.

One strategy that we can use is "lateral reading." Good lateral readers use the simple techniques of the fact-checkers in the Stanford study example. If you would like a detailed explanation of how lateral reading works, please watch the video below. For more information, please see: Wineburg, Sam and McGrew, Sarah, Lateral Reading: Reading Less and Learning More When Evaluating Digital Information (October 6, 2017). Stanford History Education Group Working Paper No. 2017-A1 . Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3048994 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3048994

About 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data are created every day, according to IBM. Scientist David Helfand says that is equal to 5 trillion books, enough to stretch around the equator on a bookshelf over 1,600 feet high. In other words, the internet is constantly updated with new articles, videos, photos, posts — and even websites — every day. In the age of so much information, it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish between good and bad sources. So, if you want to evaluate a site’s reliability, how should you do it? Most people determine the credibility of a website by reading vertically, staying inside the website to decide if it’s reliable.

We have always been taught to read this way— from the top to the bottom. “When trying to determine who is behind online information, people … make judgments based on features internal to a website like its URL, design, functionality or content. However, these features are not effective ways to evaluate a site and need to be explicitly challenged,” researchers at Stanford History Education Group explain. After studying professional fact-checkers, the Stanford History Education Group found that another approach is far more effective for assessing sites: lateral reading. Lateral reading is an evaluation strategy that's especially helpful in the online environment. You take the name of the website (or article, or book, etc.) you have, and search it online to see more information from others.

Remember that websites with biases tend to present themselves and their viewpoints in the best possible light - if you truly want to evaluate it, you will have to go outside. See more below! As a way to help lateral reading evaluation, Mike Caulfield at Washington State University created a method he calls the Four Moves, or later called SIFT. SIFT stands for Stop; Investigate the source; Find better coverage; and Trace claims, quotes, and media back to the original context. This method, as with lateral reading in general, puts an individual source back into context. It allows you to evaluate it in the larger information ecosystem, rather than as a silo all its own.

Note - in finding "better" coverage, this refers to coverage that better suits your needs. To avoid confusion about one source being objectively better than another, I have changed this slightly to "Find Other Coverage". STOP: Evaluate the source that you have found. Remember what your purpose is. What do you need from this source, and what type of information do you need it to provide? What are the major claims being made here?

Do you see any issues that should be verified or investigated further? Make a plan to put this source in the context of other information, not just what it presents here. FIND Other Coverage: In searching for information about the source you found, did you find other sources on the same question or topic? Are those sources in consensus with the source you originally found, or do they have different information? Would these new sources be more appropriate for your information needs? Apply lateral reading to the new source - what are other websites or organizations saying about this new source?

How does this new coverage put your original source in context? Can you spot what's trustworthy online? In this lesson, students learn about lateral reading—a key strategy that anyone can use to evaluate online information—and practice applying this skill to real-world examples. By learning to leave a source and investigate its claims elsewhere, students develop critical thinking skills that help them navigate an increasingly complex information landscape. Sign in or join to unlock this free lesson In this short video from Crash Course: Navigating Digital Information, John Green teaches you how to employ lateral reading in evaluating your information.

Lateral reading means: “instead of digging deep into the site at hand...lateral readers don’t spend time on the page or site until they’ve first gotten their bearings by looking at what other sites and... they get off the page...they open up many tabs in their browser. From Caulfield, M. A. (2017). Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers.

https://collection.bccampus.ca/textbooks/web-literacy-for-student-fact-checkers-361/ GO WIDE: Lateral reading is a strategy for investigating who's behind an unfamiliar online source by leaving the webpage and opening a new browser tab to see what trusted websites say about the unknown... It helps you determine an author’s credibility, intent and biases by searching for articles on the same topic by other writers (to see how they are covering it) and for other articles by the... It's one of the primary strategies employed by professional fact checkers. The lateral reading concept and the term itself developed from research conducted by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG), led by Sam Wineburg, founder and executive director of SHEG. There are two ways to approach your evaluation of a source.

The first, and most common, is through vertical reading where you examine your source from top to bottom (vertically). This is the way many of us have been taught to examine a website for authority and reliability. In vertical reading, you look at all of the information provided to you by the author of the page. This often includes things like This is often not enough to really understand the context of the source. After all, you’re relying on the author or organization to make clear whatever biases they may have.

This is where lateral reading can enhance your research and deepen your critical thinking. Instead of relying on the source to tell you about itself, open up some new tabs and search for information about the author or organization. So you’re reading and researching across your screen, rather than up and down a single page. Look for things like: The San José State University Writing Center has put together a guide to lateral reading and gives you some sample exercises (with solutions/explanations). The term Lateral Reading was coined by Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew in their 2019 study, "Lateral Reading and the Nature of Expertise", on internet source evaluation techniques.

The strategy of Lateral Reading employed by expert fact checkers involves opening a new browser tab to evaluate a source based on information from other trusted sources, rather than evaluating the source itself for... Lateral reading is similar to Triangulation but focuses more on evaluating the source of the information rather than the information itself. Search for information about the company or website. Tip: To exclude results from the website itself, use the -site operator. For example "News Target" -site:https://newstarget.com Wikipedia and established news outlets such as New York Times and Wall Street Journal have standards for reliability and fact checking.

Other source evaluation techniques suggest visiting a website's "About" page. This page is usually written to favorably represent the what the purpose of the website. You can use a domain lookup tool like ICANN Lookup to find out who a website is registered to. Use fact checking sites such as Snopes or others listed on this guide to fact check. If claims are proceeded by "research indicates", search for research articles on Articles+ or Google Scholar. Lateral Reading is an evaluation technique that is used to evaluate the credibility of an information source like an article, website, blog, or so forth.

People Also Search

Are You Teaching The Most Effective Strategies To Assess The

Are you teaching the most effective strategies to assess the credibility of digital content? Sarah McGrew, a leading expert in civics and digital literacy at the University of Maryland College of Education, hopes that many educators are answering 'yes' to this question. In a digital landscape that is vastly more complex and all-consuming than the one many of today’s educators grew up in, digital m...

This Involves Assessing The Credibility Of Information By Leaving The

This involves assessing the credibility of information by leaving the original source to seek outside perspectives about the author of the original source. At a time when concerns about the proliferation of misinformation are top-of-mind for educators nationwide, McGrew shares four steps for practicing lateral reading. One of the best ways to teach lateral reading is to model it, and these steps c...

For Example, Reading A Post On X Or Meta That

For example, reading a post on X or Meta that claims “non-citizens are voting in the election” may evoke feelings of anger or anxiousness. When teachers notice emotions such as these in themselves or in their students, it can be tempting to react quickly. Instead, McGrew says this is an indication that they should take time to investigate the credibility of the source. Questions such as, “How did ...

All Of The Fact-checkers Were Able To Determine That The

All of the fact-checkers were able to determine that the American Academy of Pediatrics was the legitimate professional organization, while the American College of Pediatricians was actually a cloaked hate group with a hidden... Only 50% of the historians, and 20% of the Stanford undergraduates were able to identify the Academy as the legitimate professional organization. The researchers suggest t...

One Strategy That We Can Use Is "lateral Reading." Good

One strategy that we can use is "lateral reading." Good lateral readers use the simple techniques of the fact-checkers in the Stanford study example. If you would like a detailed explanation of how lateral reading works, please watch the video below. For more information, please see: Wineburg, Sam and McGrew, Sarah, Lateral Reading: Reading Less and Learning More When Evaluating Digital Informatio...