text: user9373: 
  As you can see in the picture I have two files from the paired end reads. I would assume READ1 would be forward reads and READ2 would be reverse reads, but my lab colleague told me that that might not be the case. How do I confirm?
  
  user2085: Unless this is RNA-seq prepared with a directional library, or something else that you're sure is directional, it is irrelevant.
  DNA is complementary, so a DNA molecule can be turned into a sequence-able fragment with either strand given any pair of Illumina adapters and indices.
  As far as Illumina lingo goes, R1 is the first read that is read off the sequencer, or what people call the "forward read". R2 is the second pass of the same clusters, and some people call it the "reverse read". I recommend just calling them R1 and R2 reads to avoid confusion. Sequencing by synthesis produces the cleanest reads in the first pass, so R1 reads usually have better Q values. You can check this easily by comparing the quality scores with fastqc.
  You can learn more about Illumina sequencing chemistry here, or check out some other answers on the bioinformatics SE or biostars.
  
original_text: 9373: <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/8ncih.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/8ncih.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
  <p>As you can see in the picture I have two files from the paired end reads. I would assume READ1 would be forward reads and READ2 would be reverse reads, but my lab colleague told me that that might not be the case. How do I confirm?</p>
   2085: <p>Unless this is RNA-seq prepared with a directional library, or something else that you're sure is directional, it is irrelevant.</p>
  <p>DNA is complementary, so a DNA molecule can be turned into a sequence-able fragment with either strand given any pair of Illumina adapters and indices.</p>
  <p>As far as Illumina lingo goes, R1 is the first read that is read off the sequencer, or what people call the &quot;forward read&quot;. R2 is the second pass of the same clusters, and some people call it the &quot;reverse read&quot;. I recommend just calling them R1 and R2 reads to avoid confusion. Sequencing by synthesis produces the cleanest reads in the first pass, so R1 reads usually have better Q values. You can check this easily by comparing the quality scores with <a href="https://www.bioinformatics.babraham.ac.uk/projects/fastqc/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">fastqc</a>.</p>
  <p>You can learn more about Illumina sequencing chemistry <a href="http://nextgen.mgh.harvard.edu/IlluminaChemistry.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>, or check out some other answers on the bioinformatics SE or biostars.</p>
  