How can you tell if you’re knitting upside down or backwards before you are too far into your work?

Hi, I’m new to knitting and this site, so please forgive me for lack of knowledge regarding terms and all.
My query is essentially what the title suggests: how can you tell if your work is upside down or if your work is backwards? Is there a specific way to prevent it from happening, how does it happen in the first place?
I’ve been struggling with my stockinette stitch looking like a garter stitch, and I saw people discussing knitting inside-out, and that’s what brought me to this question. (And if my work turns out to not be an issue of being inside out or anything like that then I will probably return with more questions about my stitches LOL)
Thank you everyone!!!
working with circular needles, forgot to include

Hello
Don’t worry about using the right words, I never know the right words! You’ll pick things up as you go along on your knitting journey.

Are you knitting flat, going back and forth in rows where you get to the end of a row and have run out of stitches, then turn the work around and begin another row?
Or
Are you working in the round where you are using a circular needle or double pointed needles and you have joined the last stitch to the first stitch and are going around and around and never running out of stitches?

This would help just to get an idea of how you are working, what may or may not have gone inside out, and how best to support you in getting things the right way.

A short answer is if you are knitting in the round, yes it can flip and you may need to turn it inside out to get the right side or knit side to the outside again.

Stockinette is knits on the right side of the fabric, they look like columns of V. The wrong side of this is called the purl side or reverse stockinette, it’s all bumps.
You would avoid flipping your work inside out by always checking you are looking at the vvvvvvv side when you work in the round with stockinette and also to always make knit stitches, never purl.

If you are working flat, back and forth, you would knit one row, purl one row, to make stockinette. Always knit the side that looks like vvvvvvvv and purl the side that looks like bumps.

Garter stich is different it is a row of knits and a row of purls on the right side and looks kind of like waves.

You could also take a photo of your knitting to show us if you like. There is lots of help here.
Are you knitting a particular pattern?

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Hi. Questions are always welcome. I think Creations pretty much covered garter and stockinette knitting. I’m guessing you might be knitting in the round and every round should be knit for stockinette, based on what I read. Knitting is very confusing at the beginning and then it gets less confusing as you go along. Hang in there! you’ll get it figured out and yes, we’ll help.

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Welcome to the world of knitting! It does get easier, really!
Regardless of whether you’re knitting flat or in the round, the yarn is attached to the last stitch you made. This will usually be on your right needle (if you’re right- handed). So if you pick your knitting up after a break, and it’s coming from the left needle, you know you’ve turned it around or inside out.
It can be helpful to clip a stitch marker or tie a bit of another yarn on the right/front/correct side of your work, so you can identify it more easily.

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