IR 400: International Relations Capstone: Google Scholar

The Pros and Cons of Using Google Scholar

Pros: Google Scholar combines the ease of a Google search with access to scholarly and academic resources. Google Scholar searches the Web for scholarly articles, abstracts and books, but does not retrieve popular magazine, newspaper or Internet articles.

Cons: Not all scholarly output is visible to Google Scholar, especially more recent articles. Not everything listed is peer-reviewed, and it is not possible to 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; at the same time, many are accessible through Armacost Library subscription databases.

Google Scholar is an excellent place to begin you research, and it will often lead you to other sources of information.  It serves as a useful addition to  the Armacost Library catalog and databases.

• Search more efficiently by including quotation marks    (" ") around phrases or names, such as "term limits" or "Electoral College."  Using quotation marks will help to avoid searching for "term" separately from "limits," or "Electoral" separately from "College."

• Use the "OR" operator to include multiple, related keywords in your search.  For example,"college OR university" will link to articles that use either or both terms.

• Use a plus sign "+" in order to require a term.

• More Google Scholar Search Tips

(search results open in a new window) 

Before you begin, set your Scholar Preferences to University of Redlands:

• Access the Google Scholar webpage by going to http://www.google.com/ and clicking on "more," and then "Scholar." Or, access the page directly by going to http://scholar.google.com.
• Click on "Scholar Preferences" (next to the search box).
• Enter "University of Redlands" in the "Library Links" search box, then click on "Find Library."
• Check the box for: 

  University of Redlands - Armacost Library

  Click on "Save Preferences" (top, right-hand corner)

  Now you can search Google Scholar with access to Armacost Library resources.

• From the Google Scholar results page, look for the Armacost Library link.  Clicking on this link will either drop you directly into the database where the article is available or to a webpage displaying options for accessing the article.  

• Note: You may be prompted for your MyRedlands user_name and password before you can access the article or document.

• Don't forget about Interlibrary Loan for those articles for which you cannot access the full text.

Use Google Scholar alerts to keep up with new content.

• Conduct a search.

• Click on the envelope icon located near the top to the left.

• Adjust available options to suit your needs.

• If you're logged into your gmail account, click "Create alert." If you're not logged into your gmail account, enter an email address (it doesn't need to be a gmail account) and click "Create alert."

• You may receive an email prompting you to confirm this alert. Go ahead and confirm the alert.

*Since Google scholar crawls the Web, you may inadvertently receive alerts for older content that has recently been uploaded to the web.