PhAST Track Information Skills Module: Let's Talk About Google

Google Scholar searches for scholarly information on the Internet including conference papers, research papers and published journal articles. It does not search all databases or journal articles. There are advanced features such as limiting the date range, searching by author or publication and phrase searching. The most useful feature is the ability for Google to link to full text articles the university subscribes to.

 

Firstly, watch the short "Google Scholar Explained" screencast in the right column and then do the activity below.

Copy and past this search string into the search box above to see what type of results you get with google scholar:

 arthritis "pain management" "complementary medicine"

How many results did you get?  What are the top six?

Now try the following refinements using the Advanced Search function:

• In the Date section, put in 2005+
• In the Collections section, narrow your search to Medicine, Pharmacology, and Veterinary Science

Now how many results?  And what about the top six?

See what happens if you put the word arthritis in a second time (so you have the same word twice).  It doesn't change the number of results, but what does it do to the order?  What are your top six now?

Google itself really is only useful for finding web pages, but you can find journal articles using another Google resource:

Google Scholar

Google Scholar can be reached from "regular" Google pages by clicking on the "More" tab at the top of the page, or you can get it from the Library's A-Z Databases page (go to the 'G' section and look for Google).  Coming through the link in the Databases page (or the one in this guide) also pushes you through our systems, if you are off campus.  It will make you sign in with your username and password, and show links to the FindIt button so you can try to get hold of the articles you find.

If you do not come in to Google Scholar through one of our pages, you can still turn on the FindIt button - just go to Scholar Preferences and search for James Cook University in the Library Links section.

Some people prefer to use Google Scholar instead of a database to find journal articles.  This can be useful if you want to cast a wide net - but remember, you really will be getting a lot of results.  Thousands and thousands of results.  Some of these will be useful and relevant, but most of them won't be.

The difference between using Google Scholar and using a subject specific database can be best described by catching fish:

• Google Scholar is like fishing with a trawler and a large net - you'll get a lot of fish, and only some of them will be the fish you want.
• A subject specific database is like fishing with a rod and a lure - you'll get less fish, but a higher percentage will be the fish you want to catch.

When you aren't finding the kind of results you want from the databases or OneSearch, try Google Scholar.

These options are available in the Advanced Search page, and will give you better results from a Google Scholar search:

1. add a date range to limit you results (for medical sciences, the last five years are the most valuable)
2. select the Medicine, Pharmacology, and Veterinary Science subject area
   
3. Click on the Cited by link to see other articles that have cited the article you are interested in.
4. Click on the Find It @ JCU Library links for fulltext.