It is important to determine the credibility of the online resource before reading the article. To do this, it is necessary to leave the site to see what other's are saying about this site. The information used on this page comes from a research study by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG). They tested the ability of professional fact-checkers, university history professors, and Stanford college students to evaluate life websites and search for information about social and political issues. The fact-checkers were successful in all tasks in a fraction of the time. The two skills they used were Taking Bearings and Reading Laterally. These skills are explained in the boxes below.
If interested in reading more of this study, click on the title: Lateral Reading: Reading Less and Learning More When Evaluating Digital Information.
Reading laterally also means going to other websites before fully reading information on the original site. This method involves opening one or more webpages on the horizontal axis of the browser.
When exploring an unfamiliar website, you need to see what you can find out about the organization sponsoring the site. Websites are not always as they seem on the World Wide Web.
Use the following methods/tools: