We’ve all experienced the frustration, exhaustion and overwhelm of seeing too much information and not knowing if what we read or view is even true. I’d like to show you a simple way of saving your focus and attention for information that’s actually worth your time. It’s a technique called Lateral Reading, based on the best practices of professional fact-checkers. It helps us decide, from the huge number of resources we run across (especially on social media platforms), which might be worth our time and attention. Here’s how you do it:
Step 1: Do not examine the source in question yet. First, open a new tab in your browser. Enter the publication, website or author’s name from the source, and do a quick Google search. You’re looking for a known, reputable site (think New York Times, Wikipedia, or Snopes) that will give you a general idea of what experts think about the publication or author of the source.
Does the source tend to be trusted or tend to be biased or sensationalist? Is the author an expert on the topic of the source? Spend less than 1 minute on this step.
After completing Step 1, you might be done with the Lateral Reading technique. Often with that quick initial search we find out pretty clearly whether the original source is worth our time. But if you’re still unclear about which way to go with the source, it’s time for Step 2.
Step 2: In this step you find coverage of the topic from a different, more reliable source. Again, you’ll open a new tab in your browser, and this time you’ll search the keywords of the topic to find what other known and reputable sources have written on the topic. You might even try a general library database like MasterFile, or a known news site like New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or others you’re familiar with. Now that you found this, you have a more reliable source than the original you were curious about.
That’s the basic technique. If you want to learn more about ways to get to the good stuff, see the Library’s guide to evaluating websites at https://guides.kirkwood.edu/evaluatingWeb
Important reminder: Applying critical, in-depth evaluation of a source is best used when you’ve already established that a resource is generally reliable. Once it passes the Lateral Reading test, you’re ready to read and study the source in depth, or see what new knowledge you can create by crossing it with your existing troves of knowledge. You got this!
Categories: Art & Life, Contributed
