Providing instruction on web evaluation will help your students select web-based resources that are appropriate for college level research. Students tend to give more weight to the visual appearance of websites instead of more reliable markers of authority like the reputation of the website or the author’s credentials and experience. Most have been taught to examine the website itself to determine its credibility. Recent research tells us that this is not the best way to measure the quality of a web-based resource.
In this lesson, students will use lateral reading to assess the quality of a website. After an introduction to the concept of lateral reading, students will work in pairs to complete an online worksheet.