Pros and Cons of Using Google Scholar
What is Google Scholar?
Google Scholar provides access to many references and a limited number of free, full-text articles. You can search across disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other websites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research - but it's important to note that most of the content in Google Scholar is not free.
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CONS |
- user friendly, accessible platform
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- limitations on narrowing results to full-text, open access (free) (vs multiple limiters in Virtual Library)
- most content is indexed only, not full-text (vs the majority of content full-text in Virtual Library)
- usually hit a paywall (NEVER hit a paywall in Virtual Library)
- if full-text is not available through Google Scholar, you must go through many steps to find the content elsewhere (vs one-stop research in the Virtual Library)
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- has multiple formats (ebooks, journals, multimedia)
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- not all content is credible (vs ALL content in the Virtual Library is credible)
- there are standards for deposit in Google Scholar, but not everything is peer-reviewed or scholarly
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- helpful in locating open-access (free) content not in the Virtual Library
TIP: use Google Scholar to look for a known article if you don't find it in the Virtual Library
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Conclusion: start your research in the Virtual Library and then use Google Scholar to supplement this research.
Questions? Contact us at asc-thevirtuallibrarian@post.edu. Help is available 7 days a week!
