Conduct research with Google Scholar

Launch a web browser and open www.google.com as usual, then open a second browser window or tab, go to Google again, but this time click the More link at the top and choose Scholar from the list. Now use each Google window in turn to search for the same thing and compare the results. To follow this Workshop, type Monsters and the critics (it’s an academic essay by Tolkien from the 1930s) and click Search. The ‘ordinary’ Google Search list begins with a Wikipedia entry, a link to Amazon and various Tolkien-related sites.

Flip to the other browser window (or tab) and compare the results. The first one in this example is entirely different. In fact, it’s a link to the actual text of the essay we’re looking for, stored on the internet as a Microsoft Word document. Just click on the link and then click Open at the Windows prompt. After a moment or two, the document opens in Word. This is the kind of direct access to certain texts that makes Scholar so useful.

Flip back to Google Scholar and check out the other links beneath the top result. One of these is the Cited by link, which aggregates other articles, books and papers that refer to the thing we’re searching for. In this example, the essay is cited by 92 other sources. Clicking the link and then scrolling down the results list reveals a link to another one of Google’s digitised books, which we can explore online for free.

Clearly, not every book is going to be conveniently available online whenever we want to check it out and so Google Scholar also has links to major libraries. Click the browser’s back button to return to the original search results list and this time click the Library Search link underneath the top result. From here it’s possible to type in a geographical location and then find out which libraries in the vicinity have a physical copy of the book that can be consulted. In this example, the nearest copy is 49kms away at the University of Oxford.

It’s also possible to have Scholar include results from local libraries. Click on the Scholar Preferences link next to the Search button on the main Scholar page, then scroll down to the Library Links box and type in the name of a local library – in this example, it’s Brighton. Then click Find Library. Scholar lets us select up to three libraries by putting a tick in the box next to their names. Click Save Preferences and then search for something popular such as Shakespeare. Here Scholar includes a “Find it @ link” indicating a title is available from the library at Brighton University.

Finally, it’s worth taking a moment to check out the Advanced Scholar Search settings by clicking the link next to the Search button on the main Scholar page. From here it’s possible to specify the author, publication and date of an article or book, as well as define the discipline it belongs to; for example, biology, life sciences and environmental science, or social sciences, arts and humanities. It’s not perfect by any means, but Google Scholar is another step forward in academic research, and handy for students.