Last week I discussed how you can find news articles online using Google's advanced archive search. This week, I will show you how to use another interesting feature on Google. It is called Google Scholar, and with this tool you can find scholarly articles from a wide variety of academic disciplines. Google Scholar will come in handy when you have to write research papers for your courses.
To get to Google Scholar you will click on the "advanced search" link on the main Google page. Once you get to the advanced search screen, scroll down to "topic specific searches" at the bottom. Under this heading is a link to Google Scholar; clicking on that link takes you to the Google Scholar search page. To see more options for searching with Google Scholar, click on the "advanced scholar search" to the right. This will show you all the options available for finding scholarly articles and books.
The Advanced Scholar Search page allows you to limit your search to specific subject areas, which is useful when trying to find articles within a particular discipline, such as medicine. You can also find articles written by a specific author, or articles published in a specific academic journal.
When Google Scholar gives you a list of articles in response to search terms you have entered, it is important to know how to use the options that come with the search results. For example, if you are looking for articles published on stem cell research, and one of the articles listed seems relevant to your topic, you can click on the "related articles" link below the article to get others like it. Sometimes, if the article is in pdf format, you have the option of clicking on "view as HTML" to get a web page version of it.
As a research tool, I highly recommend Google Scholar.
