Information Literacy In Real Life (IL IRL)

Lateral Reading

There are many different methods that you can use to determine whether a source is credible. One great method you can use is called lateral reading. Lateral reading is a skill used by professional fact-checkers that helps them quickly review a source and determine whether that source is credible or not. This means instead of only staying on one webpage to determine if a source is credible, lateral reading encourages you to leave the webpage and use other webpages to decide if a source is credible or not.

When you only stay on one webpage, you can only see what that source is saying about themselves. A source might be presenting themselves in a way that is not entirely accurate. Reading vertically (only staying on one webpage) is very time-consuming and does not give you a full indication of the credibility of the source.

Check out the below video from the Stanford History Education Group on lateral reading.

To learn more about lateral reading (and to see some examples of lateral reading in action), check out the SCC Library's Evaluating Sources Guide.