Why use Google Scholar?
- Google Scholar is familiar and relatively simple to use, much like Google.
- Google Scholar allows users to search for a find a wide variety of materials including articles, books, "grey literature" like conference proceedings on a vast number of topics.
- Google Scholar allows for you to see articles related to the one that might interest you, how many times an article has been cited and by whom, and provides citations for articles in a number of styles.
- Google Scholar can display links to articles and books held through the FVCC Library.
- Google Scholar allows you to save both citations and articles to read later.
- You can set research alerts so that you receive notice whenever a new article is published in your topic of interest.
Drawbacks to Using Google Scholar
- Google Scholar's coverage is is wide-ranging but not comprehensive. It can be a research source, but should not be the only source you use.
- Google Scholar does not provide the criteria for what makes its results "scholarly". You may need to Google the journal name to see if the article you want to use is from a peer-reviewed journal.
- Some articles are not freely available. When you come across an article that you cannot access for free, you will need to request that article through the FVCC Library Inter-Library Loan Request Form.
