From school students to adults with doctorates, everyone has easy access to the internet and therefore, to a plethora of information. While that is convenient and helps the people in a lot of ways, this democratized access to information has negative aspects as well.
Most people, no longer, feel the necessity of judging the credibility of the information before sharing it. This has opened the gates for a whole variety of corrupt activities that have the power to shake society from its very core. Starting from the common public to politicians, historians, and other highly-deemed professionals, everyone has become a victim of this.
Introduction to Lateral and Vertical Readings- Why are they relevant at present?
In absolutely simple words, lateral reading refers to the process of verifying the content or material that you’re reading. One may associate this with the notion of fact-checking that has gained a significant amount of importance in the field of journalism. It has been built centering on the idea of fake news and how to deal with such viral misinformation. However, the true purpose of lateral learning could not be achieved without vertical learning.
Also defined as the first phase of the news evaluation procedure, vertical reading is simply a preliminary quality check that whether the story or information is worthy enough to go through the next evaluation stage of lateral reading.
However, this has a wider context that needs to be discussed in this case. While people believe in vertical reading, they don’t have much time in the 21st-century fast world to go through the process of lateral reading also. Speaking of this, vertical reading is also not carried out in the right way. For instance, the reliability of information is evaluated based on a quick analysis of the source. This proves to be effective at certain times but not 100% approved for all situations.
Fact-checking is extremely important in this regard. It is an intrinsic part of lateral reading. Not only the credibility of the source, but to determine the quality and authenticity of the information, the research needs to be quite intensive and deep.
Aims of Lateral Reading
Lateral reading takes up a certain approach that has only one agenda and that is to evaluate the information at hand thoroughly. This efficient evaluation can be done by analyzing the credibility of the publisher, searching for it on fact-checking sites to double check and follow pages and links that have been used as reference. But your research is not only limited to that. To get to the bottom of that, one can also conduct quick research on what other entities or organizations have to say about this particular source.
Aims of Vertical Reading
Vertical reading isn’t as expensive as lateral. It tends to stay within the boundaries of the original source and aims at evaluating the information. However, that serves the purpose well because it mostly aims at judging the quality of the information that may/ may not be required to share with the common public.
Which one is more effective- Lateral reading or vertical reading?
Both are interrelated and that’s why it’s not quite possible to state which one is more effective. Rather, it can be said that vertical reading and lateral reading complement each other. During the initial phase (vertical reading), the reader is vested with the responsibility of understanding if the story or information deserves to undergo further screening processes involving a lot of time and effort. Lateral reading, on the other hand, is more of a challenge. It requires breaking free from the boundaries and restrictions of the original source and focusing on the alternatives.
Nonetheless, both the procedures of learning are important and play an important role in the curriculum of the students. That is why the top 10 schools in Sonipat focus on both systems to ensure that the students don’t miss out on anything vital while learning. Remember that, both vertical and lateral learning is not only to be restricted to the notion of journalism. This is a constant and healthy practice that is taught from the formative years itself at the top school in Sonipat.
Swarnprastha Public School is a highly acclaimed academic institution securing the topmost rank in the school’s list Sonipat. They are not only known for providing the best to their students but also ensuring that the students utilize the resources to their full capacity in order to shape their future. Students are also taught about the value of lateral and vertical reading in a very simplified manner from the initial days only so that they develop this habit and use it in their lives throughout the entire time to contribute towards making this society a better and propaganda-free place.
