How to use Google Scholar for Academic Research?

Google Scholar was launched way back in the year It is a product which brought the much-needed relief for the academically and research inclined users of Google. What this service meant is that now the user could use a separate interface for all his research based search needs. The initial response was great for this Google product, however in the days that followed it was exposed to some ruthless criticism. The critics and the serious users of the service were of the opinion that Google Scholar still had a long way to go as far as academic research is concerned. Now these are the people who are into serious research and had high expectations from the service. More than a decade and a half has passed since this service was rolled out, and let us tell you this, Google has significantly improved its Google Scholar Service.

Using Google Scholar for academic research: Using Google Scholar is no big deal. It's just like using a Google search. The only difference here is that you get filtered and to the point results. So it's easy for you to collect information and then use it accordingly. It's a no fuss interface and can be used by anyone. Again we would recommend using it with other Google tools to make your research work a breeze.

Why are scholarly sources more appropriate for academic research? We would be answering this question, from the Google Scholar point of view. Google Scholar is a service which provides a collective interface for all the relevant information that a research scholar might require during his research study. A Research Scholar would tell you that the hardest part of conducting research is Managing the sources of knowledge. Scholarly sources must be relevant and they must be manageable.

However, students have their concern when it comes to solely depending upon Google Scholar for their research. Some concerns are as follows: 1. Students respond well to the familiar feel of using Google Scholar, but express frustration at the clear dominance of natural sciences over social sciences and the humanities. 2. Students looking for full-text versions of articles are often presented with similar versions of the article from multiple sources (the author, the publisher, and however many databases give GS access to their index and archives). This makes it difficult to identify official versions as opposed to Preprint or corrected versions.

3. Academic Librarians seeking to assist researchers in creating literature reviews are frustrated with the current inability to filter-out predatory journal content and open access material. Whether the material is a peer-reviewed is not always made clear, and there is no way to filter the search by peer-reviewed journal. 4. Research Scientists continue to be frustrated with the limitations of Google Scholar's preference for post hoc searches. In other words, rather than producing a robust systematic review of available literature on a topic, Google Scholar performs best when you know what you’re looking for in advance. This can be helpful in tracking down a specific article (especially a free version), but it’s not much use if you’re just beginning to compile your literature review.

Conclusion: Leaving aside the criticism, Google scholar is really a great tool for those in to research and we hope more and more people will get benefited from it in the coming future. The real benefit of service like Google scholar is only for the serious students of research. For them having a single source of content for their research is a real boon. Services like these are really shaping the future of academic research. To know more click on the link given below: research/ research/