There are many good reasons to spend some time with Google Scholar, as well as caveats in respect of its credentials. It remains a serious contender for academic literature searching; for example, a couple of recent papers:
- “Google Scholar to overshadow them all? Comparing the sizes of 12 academic search engines and bibliographic databases“
- “Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus: A systematic comparison of citations in 252 subject categories“
Although Google Scholar is easy to use, there are a wealth of features worth discovering for academic researchers. We have just updated our library guide to Google Scholar which may be of interest to research staff and students. This is now in two parts:
- “Google Scholar for Literature Searching” (PDF, and the Welsh PDF) which covers useful features such as linking Google Scholar to Swansea University’s paid subscription content, using cited reference searching and referencing.
- “Google Scholar Profiles” (PDF, and the Welsh PDF) for anyone who publishes papers, highlighting the benefits of setting up a Google Scholar profile to track citations and enhance the discoverability of your work.
The Twitter account @GScholarDigest is worth following if you are interested in ongoing academic research into Google Scholar.