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Google Scholar

A short guide to effectively utilizing this more scholarly research tool from Google.

What Is Google Scholar?

Google Scholar is sort of like Google's version of our research databases in that it indexes scholarly content, making it easier to pick out than if you did a normal Google Search.

Google comparison

Pictured above are the first few results for the search "psychology children television." On the left are results from Google Scholar, and on the right, normal Google. You'll notice that the regular results include a section at the very top identifying some of the scholarly articles; clicking here will take you over to the Google Scholar results page.

  Google Scholar Google
# of results 757,000 results (fewer) 50,900,000 results (lots)
What kind of results Scholarly articles written by experts and formally published by mostly reputable entities "Popular" articles from regular websites - news, blogs, magazines, etc with all degrees of credibility (or lack thereof)
Can you read it? Full-text may or may not be available; odds are good you'll run into paywalls Full-text of web articles generally available