Google Scholar: Search Strategies, Citation Analysis, and More: Search Tips

The Pros and Cons

Pros: Google Scholar combines the ease of Google with access to scholarly materials. Google Scholar searches the Web for scholarly articles, abstracts and books, weeding out popular magazine, newspaper or Internet articles. It allows you to search broadly across multiple disciplines in one search.

Cons: Not all scholarly output is visible to Google Scholar. Not everything is peer-reviewed, nor can you search or filter by peer-review status. Full-text versions of many items indexed by Google Scholar are not available for free through the Internet; however, many are accessible through Armacost Library subscription databases or through Interlibrary Loan.

The Upshot: Google Scholar is a great place to supplement your search, and should lead you to other resources. 

Before you begin, set your preferences to University of Redlands:

1. Access the Google Scholar webpage by going to https://scholar.google.com.

2. Click the three strips on the upper left side of webpage, and then click on "Settings" link.

3. Click on "Library Links" link, and search for University of Redlands and select University of Redlands - Armacost Library. (Also search for Worldcat and select Open WorldCat - Library Search.)

4. You should see the following and click on "Save" (bottom of page):

You're ready to search Google Scholar with access to Armacost Library resources!

Note:  Use Interlibrary Loan when full text is not directly available through Armacost Library.