Polymathic and Health Science Scholars

About Google Scholar:

• Is a source to find scholarly papers from a broad range of disciplines and source types.
• Can be used to identify papers that cite a given work.

Pros of using Google Scholar:

• May be able to identify new literature not yet in other databases.
• Will search through all the text contained in a paper (if it has it). Most indexing databases only search the title, abstract, and subjects.
• Can help find references that are difficult to identify from reference lists of other papers.
• Can help locate free copies of many articles if they are available online (like preprints or open-access copies).

Cons of using Google Scholar:

• Can’t filter to view only peer-reviewed sources.
• Can’t search more than 256 characters in the search box.
• Contains fewer options to filter results than other indexing databases.
• Can include results that are not high quality publications - such as predatory journals or content that is not peer reviewed.
• Difficult to identify what is included or excluded from Google Scholar.

Also known as forward citation tracing or searching, this method allows you to easily obtain a list of articles that cite an article. This usually means that the topic matter is similar, or that similar methods are used in the citing paper.

Instructions:

1.) Search for the title of the article that is of interest to you.

2.) Click on the 'Cited by' link at the bottom of the record. If this link does not exist, that means there are no future citations yet that Google Scholar has identified.

Google Scholar will frequently list multiple access points for resources if they are available. It can be a great place to check for open-access copies.  If you can't find a copy of an article through the library catalog or subscription resources, it's worth checking Google Scholar before submitting an Interlibrary Loan request. These copies are usually free to access and have been deposited by an author to a repository (check sources with a .edu suffix) or have a version available due to funder requirements (PMC). 

The article Determinants of Breeding Distribution of Ducks, in Google Scholar currently has 10 versions available. You can identify the number of versions at the bottom of the record. You can click on the link that reads 10 versions to view all of the available access points. Not every version will have an open-access copy associated with it, but some may.