Human Resource Management and Management & Leadership: Google Scholar

This video describes how to quickly access a full text article from a citation using Google Scholar.

Google Scholar is an excellent resource, especially for its familiar and inituitive interface. However, users should be aware of some differences between Google Scholar and more traditional scholarly databases.

Google Scholar searches for keywords in the full text of a document, so be aware that you might need to try additional searches with synonymous words or terms in order not to miss relevant materials. Also, Google does not reveal the titles and years of the journals they have access to; this makes it difficult to know what important research is not available through Google Scholar.

Finally, Google Scholar ranks search results differently than scholarly databases, which normally list citations in chronological order, beginning from the most recent. Per authors Beel and Gipp:

Overall, Google Scholar‘s ranking algorithm relies heavily on an article‘s citation count. As a result, Google Scholar strengthens the Matthew effect and is more suitable when searching for standard literature than gems, the latest trends, or articles by authors advancing a different view from the mainstream. Should Google Scholar become as popular for academic articles as it is for websites, the ranking algorithm will create further incentives for scholars to actively influence, or manipulate their citation counts.

Beel, J., Gipp, B. (2009). Google Scholar‘s Ranking Algorithm: An Introductory Overview. In Birger Larsen and Jacqueline Leta, eds., Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI’09), 1, pp. 230–241. Rio de Janeiro (Brazil): International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics.