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Tutorial: Evaluating Online Sources through Lateral Reading: An Introduction (Part 1/2)

Tutorial on evaluating online sources through "lateral reading"

Time to Practice

Capoeira Practice on Dili Beach. 3 humans in mid flip on beach Now it’s your turn. On the next page you'll evaluate the site MinimumWage.com. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Remember that often you may not find a Wikipedia article that is exclusively about the source you’re interested in, but the source may still be discussed in another Wikipedia article. That other Wikipedia article can provide important context for understanding the source. Look in that article for references to your source or to its creator or affiliates.
  • Sometimes it’s helpful to look for who created a site and then to investigate who they are.
  • Remember that your Internet search results page may look slightly different from someone else’s, since online information is always changing and since your personal browser settings may affect your results.
  • Want a refresher? SIFT (Four Moves)

Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC-SA
This guide was created by Andrea Baer and Dan Kipnis at Rowan University and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-SA).

Image credit: "Capoeira Practice on Dili Beach" by United Nations Photo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0


Next: Evaluate MinimumWage.com