First Year Experience

Here are some resources to follow up on our October 30 class session on lateral reading. At the bottom of this page, I responded to the questions you asked about lateral reading in the 3-question survey.

Here is the short video we watched at the beginning of class:

• Lateral Reading (University of Louisville)

Here is an interactive tutorial about lateral reading, created by Tredway Library. It could be helpful if you feel you need more practice:

• Evaluating Sources Using Lateral Reading

Here are answers to your questions about lateral reading:

What's a good site to check reliability of sources?

If you are doing lateral reading of unfamiliar sources from the internet or social media, try to get your information from sites you already know and understand. Wikipedia is often a great place to start with lateral reading. Well-known news organizations are also a good bet.

If you're unsure which news organizations and other major publications are trustworthy, the library subscribes to an Interactive Media Bias Chart that can help. The chart maps publications by their political leanings and reliance on fact-based reporting.

What is the threshold where a source is cut off as being credible?

With lateral reading, it seems there is always more to investigate! At the very least, I'd say you should verify the author and the sponsoring organization laterally in outside sources that you trust. It probably doesn't hurt to investigate at least one piece of evidence in the source, too, to ensure the evidence is high-quality and correctly interpreted by the source. If all of those things check out, you're probably okay to decide the source is credible.

Are there reliable .com resources since they stand to gain profit?

Yes, there are. Being a for-profit publication isn't automatically bad. After all, every organization needs money in order to function! The question is what the underlying motives and purpose of the organization are. For example, newspapers like the New York Times (liberal-leaning) and Wall Street Journal (conservative-leaning) conduct investigative journalism for an audience of people who want high-quality information about current events. Yet, both exist online as .com websites (nytimes.com and wsj.com).

The profit motive does mean, however, that funding sources can influence what and how an organization publishes. Responsible news organizations try to minimize that, because they know what their audience cares about. Conflicts of interest are possible, however, and they do occur. Try to remain aware of that and cross-check information against other sources when you can.

If you want another perspective on a news organization or major publication, the library subscribes to an Interactive Media Bias Chart that can help. The chart maps publications by their political leanings and reliance on fact-based reporting.

When should I use an article even if it's "bad"?

I genuinely believe that there is no such thing as "good" and "bad" sources, only sources that are good and bad for particular purposes.

Here is an example, using a source we talked about in class: "What Are the Benefits of Service Learning?" from the National Youth Leadership Council. The group that evaluated this source noticed that the NYLC is an organization whose purpose is to promote service learning among young people. The source was written by NYLC's CEO.

If you are trying to determine whether or not service learning is beneficial, this source is not ideal. Why? Well, of course the CEO of an organization that promotes service learning will say it is beneficial! In this case, you are better off looking for studies that approach the topic openly rather than with a preconceived idea.

The source could be helpful for other purposes, however. What if you're trying to understand why promoters of service learning like it so much? In that case, this source could be a great example of a cheerleader for service learning explaining their views.

When you are choosing sources for a topic, I recommend always asking yourself: What kind of information do I need? What do I need my sources to accomplish for me in my project? What type of source will my audience find most persuasive?