Established in 2004, Google Scholar is a massive database of scholarly literature that allows users to access information, cross reference it with other sources, and keep up with new research as it comes out.
Using Google Scholar, you can access these kinds of sources:
Here’s everything you need to know about the powerful research tool.
Anyone can access the search database. And while it’s built with college or grad students and other academics in mind – to help those writing academic papers create bibliographies more easily – anyone can reap its benefits.
Here are just a few examples of what you can do through Google Scholar:
Google Scholar is free to use as a search tool. However, since it pulls information from many other databases, it’s possible that some of the results you pull up will require a login (or even payment) to access the full information.
Quick tip: Whether an article is free depends on a variety of factors like the publication and its funding agency mandates. Go to the Public Access section of the Google Scholar profile to view its mandates – if a free version is available, you’ll see an HTML or PDF link on the right side.
Still, descriptions or abstracts are typically free and provide an overview of what’s contained within the article.
Overall, Google Scholar provides an excellent avenue into scholarly research, and while it does have its drawbacks, it’s a tool that can be used to help clarify, explore and inform users about a wide variety of topics.
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