Researching Google Scholar

 As an educator and mother, I am always searching for the best ways of researching a subject, but also the least frustrating. This led me to investigate google scholar to see what kind of help it would be to me and to a student in need of research and sources. I chose three subjects: something commonly searched (Covid-19), something a student may search (WW2 airplanes), and a personal/professional search (preschool language development). Both in google search and google scholar I used the same wording, then investigated the top three results in both, and compared the results. 

For my google search about Covid-19 I was given statistics on a graph, news articles from the Washington Post, CNN, links about vaccinations, and local channels and sites geared to the state in which I live. However, in Scholar the top links were an article by AS Fauci, a medical journal and clinical immunology articles, followed by mental health writings. Whether one believes the information or not it seemed the Google search results were mostly media related whereas the Scholar results were more research based. It seemed Google Scholar had a lot of medical journals and articles that would be good for reading and research including clinical trials and its ethics from Mayo Clinic.

The next subject I imputed was WW2 airplanes. In the google search the top results were amazing images to view right away, an education and Smithsonian website. This was followed by Ducksters.com which is specifically for kids learning about history which contained audio in order to hear all the information written if needed/wanted. In addition to this, there were videos recommended for this subject. However, Google Scholar was frustrating to get information I could actually view. When searching for WW2 airplanes, I was given links that did not apply but actually suggested different information such as gays in WW2, the airplane market, etc. There were some sources that seemed to deal with my subject, however they were in book form. When Google Scholar recommends a book to read on your subject search, you are able to read an abstract which tells about the book. Then, there is a link to go to the book but only a preview is available and oftentimes access needs to be granted by entering your institutional login code or email address. Even then only the paragraphs mentioning the word searched appear for reading. If a person wants to get the full context of the book chapter, etc. they need to purchase the book or search the title in a virtual library. This seemed like a hassle a student would not go through when conducting research.

The third subject I entered into both search bars was preschool language development. Google search’s top results gave me a US government site from the department of education about teaching and training for language development, followed by an Australian parenting website and an article by a professional who specializes in parenting and education with expertise in learning disabilities and AD/HD. This was a helpful article in understanding language development for preparing children to read. Google Scholar showed articles from the American Psychological Association and books from experts. Both search and scholar were helpful in this instance.

Findings from my research are as follows. Generally, when a google search is done the programmed algorithms take into consideration past searches which have indicated the area you live in, interests, and bias wording previously searched. So for my searches I was given what google considers to be most applicable sites based on prior searches. This can be good as it saves time and effort in some instances, but in other instances it requires creativity in wording to get the desired results. 

Having never used Scholar, it did not seem to have the same results in its programming. However, it did have some helpful features. It allows a person to include the option for patents and citations. Citations are nice because if you use that book, article, etc. you can just click the (“) and you are given several citation options and it will do it for you. Then a copy and paste seems the most effective way to add to your paper. Another nice thing that can be done is to specify a range of years to search. In using this it is important to note that the years entered will yield writings during those years not what happened during those years. Scholar offers an “Advanced Search” for specific authors and titles. It also has “my library”. This is a nice place to put things you want to come back to without having to do the search all over again. Instead, clicking on my library will bring you to all the resources you put there.

Unfortunately, there were some things that were not great about Google Scholar. First, when you click on the link of a resource, only a preview and an abstract of what the book/article is about is given and you have to sign in under your institution login or email. Then you have to click on the link of what you want to read and it takes you to the original for further detail. Second, if you find a book that seems like it would be helpful and click on it, you can only see aspects of the book or sometimes not at all. Links are given to buy the book or search the book and view the sections that mention your search, but cannot view the full context of the chapter. You would have to go to an online library to gain full access to the book. This would need to be explained to students in order to avoid unnecessary frustration.

I have much more to learn, but for now I would say Google Scholar is a good resource to be used by students and educators alike in certain situations for in depth research. However, I would mostly defer to Google search to gain pictures and videos related to the desired subject matter.