Sorting Fact from Fiction Online

Remember the Stanford History Education Group? Their research Links to an external site. shows that both students and professors are pretty bad at evaluating websites. Fact-checkers, on the other hand, can quickly and accurately identify untrustworthy content online. How? 

Lateral Reading 

Watch this short video about the Stanford study.

 

In the Stanford study, students and professors stayed within the websites they were evaluating and looked for signs of authority. Fact-checkers left the websites and searched for information about who was behind the website. That is, they read laterally to learn about the source. 

Try this yourself. Compare The American Academy of Pediatrics Links to an external site. with The American College of Pediatricians Links to an external site.. Which source is more trustworthy?