Does Google Scholar Only Use Peer Reviewed Articles

Revised and updated Sept 9, 2019. Links reviewed and updated November 29, 2020.

Over the concluding few years, the usefulness of Google Scholar has really improved.  But, is it as apparent as other databases?  Unfortunately information technology's non that simple: Google Scholar's purpose and office are just different from other databases.  Google Scholar intends to be a place for researchers to start.  As their "About" page says: Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature.

The way Google Scholar indexes or collects its information is different from other databases. "Scholarly" databases usually alphabetize articles on specific disciplines or topics, with certain journals being included on purpose.  Basically, they're created by people.  Google Scholar's results, like regular Google, are created by a figurer: Google scans unlike webpages for scholarly textile, with less care going into the journals that publish these articles.

What you're probably looking for is a directly answer: Should I, or should I not use Google Scholar?  If I had to give yous ane, I'd say go ahead and use Google Scholar.  It can exist helpful when you're starting the research process on a topic, it finds apparent journal articles, and it frequently turns up stuff you wouldn't find elsewhere.  However, you should make certain to use it in combination with other subject-specific databases.

Ane more thing: if you're wondering whether you should use Google Scholar over Omni, which is on our library homepage, I would recommend sticking with Omni.  While Google Scholar has great benefits, Omni volition but bring up articles that y'all have access to.  This means you won't have to exercise as much poking around to find the full-text of articles as you would with Google Scholar.

For more information, I've put together a pros and cons listing for Google Scholar.

Pros:

• But credible, scholarly cloth is included in Google Scholar, according to the inclusion criteria: "content such as news or mag manufactures, volume reviews, and editorials is not appropriate for Google Scholar."  Technical reports, briefing presentations, and periodical manufactures are included, equally are links to Google Books.
• In particular, Google has good coverage of non-English sources, too equally Open Admission articles and those independent in institutional repositories! Some databases may non comport these, and this was a benefit found across articles published from 2012-2017 on Google Scholar's coverage (Dewan, 2012; Halevi, Moed, & Bar-Ilan, 2017; Quint, 2015). If you want to learn more nigh Open Access, aka OA, yous can read more hither.
• An early criticism was that Google Scholar did not have the same coverage as other databases, but a 2017 study showed that this was no longer as much of an upshot (Halevi, Moed, & Bar-Ilan, 2017).
• This database is a commendation index, meaning you tin can search the number of times an article has been cited by other people.  This is a function of many credible databases.
• Google Scholar ranks the results past number of citations, which tin can mean that influential studies or results get bumped closer to the pinnacle of the list (see the cons list for the flip side of this point)
• Google Scholar is interdisciplinary, meaning you are searching a huge range of topics all at once.  Y'all get different search results this style than yous'd discover in discipline-specific databases, every bit a result.
• You can observe A LOT more fabric using Google Scholar than some other databases (non all).
• It'due south like shooting fish in a barrel to use considering it's familiar!
• It is also free to utilise, pregnant you'll also have access later on graduation.

Cons:

• It rarely finds all of the reliable textile that "scholarly" databases do, and it sometimes misses actually of import manufactures: studies comparing Google Scholar with PsycINFO, PubMed, Spider web of Science, Scopus, and more found that Google Scholar was unable to produce all of the articles listed in the scholarly databases (Asher, Duke, & Wilson, 2013; Howland, Wright, Boughan, & Roberts, 2009; Ruppel, 2009; Schultz, 2007).  This means yous can't rely on Google Scholar solitary.
• Reckoner errors are more common with Google Scholar considering it isn't maintained by people: broken links, repetitive or duplicate results, and other issues are more likely.
• A central result noted in recent studies is that Google Scholar has a huge trouble with a lack of transparency virtually how they collect what they give admission to (Herther, 2017). This as well means that outside researchers cannot say for certain how high-quality Google Scholar'due south sources are (or are non).
• Because Google Scholar ranks past number of commendation / relevancy, the ranking listing tin can be easily manipulated – this means that the results that show upwardly at the top of the listing might not be the best sources, or fifty-fifty the most right ones. You will accept to evaluate the sources carefully and use disquisitional thinking, as always!
• The content in Google Scholar is changing constantly, making information technology less suitable for literature reviews or systematic reviews.
• Google Scholar does not note which version of a particular material is being shown, meaning yous might cease up seeing pre-impress materials or ones that haven't gone through a peer-review procedure.
• You lot're express in what fields will be searched through Google Scholar, and cannot utilize some search functions similar truncation.
• It may non offer any more benefits than Omni does, through Brescia and Western Libraries.

Sources:

Asher, A. D., Duke, Fifty. M., and Wilson, S. (2013). Paths of discovery: Comparing the search effectiveness of EBSCO Discovery Service, Summon, Google Scholar, and conventional library resources. Higher & Enquiry Libraries, 74(5), 464-488.

Chen, Ten., O'Kelly, K., Antell, One thousand., & Strothmann, M. (2013). Cross-examining Google Scholar. Reference and User Services Quarterly, 52(four), 279-282.

Dewan, P. (2012). Making the About of Google Scholar in Bookish Libraries. Feliciter (CLA), 58(half dozen), 41-42.

Halevi, G., Moed, H., and Bar-Ilan, J. (2017). Suitability of Google Scholar as a source of scientific data and as a source of information for scientific evaluation – Review of the Literature. Journal of Infometrics, xi, 823-834.

Herther, N. K. (2017). Google Scholar: library partner or database competitor? onlinesearcher.net, Sept/Oct 2017, p 30-34.

Howland, J., Wright, T. C., Boughan, R. A., and Roberts, B. C. (2009). How Scholarly is Google Scholar? A comparison to library databases. College and Enquiry Libraries, lxx(3), 227-234.

Jacso, P. (2005).Google Scholar:the pros and cons. Online Information Review, 29(ii) 208‐214.

Quint, B. (2015). Google Scholar: the world's best discovery service? Information Today, p. 17.

Ruppel, M. (2009, January). Google Scholar, Social Piece of work Abstracts (EBSCO), and PsycINFO (EBSCO). The Charleston Counselor, v‐11.

Shultz, Chiliad. (2007). Comparison test searches in PubMed and Google Scholar. Periodical of the Medical Library Clan, 95(4), 442‐445.

This post was written by Heather Campbell on October 21st, 2010.

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Source: https://beryliveylibrary.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/google-scholar/

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