Strengths of Google Scholar | Weaknesses of Google Scholar |
Fast and easy to use Provides a "cited by" feature Provides formatted citations Provides library links Find open access journals Find science and technology articles Find patents and legal documents |
Is everything really "scholarly"? As always, it is important to review and assess each source for its authority and quality for your research. I have to pay? No full text? My results are all over the place. Is there a way to sort results? The results are confusing. Patent and Legal Document Searching |
Not everything is free on Google Scholar. You may find an article's abstract and be asked to pay up to $50.00 for the full text.
However, since you are a member of the UWL community, you have access to everything through Murphy Library's paid subscription databases and services.
Murphy Library has an agreement with Google Scholar to harvest the library's paid database results and show them in the Google Scholar results, saving you time and energy.
You just have to configure your computer in five easy steps:
1. Why does the "Find It @ UWL" link appear next to some items and not others?
Google Scholar displays this link after comparing the citation to our list of electronic subscriptions. Keep in mind that Google Scholar does not know when we have the print version, nor can it match an incomplete citation. So if the item is not available for free via the web, be sure to search our catalog to see if Murphy Library owns that title.
2. Is everything in Google Scholar free?
No. Google Scholar includes many citations that link directly to publishers' web sites of which most will charge a fee for access. However, Murphy Library subscribes to many of these publications.
3. How can I get the full text through Murphy Library?
The Find It @ UWL link should be your first choice. If this link is not available, try other links that are displayed, as Google Scholar may find several sources for the same citation. When you are unable to find free access to full text through Google Scholar, copy/paste the article title only in the main search box on Murphy Library's homepage to get access to the title.
4. How comprehensive is Google Scholar?
Google Scholar searches open access materials as well as items from many publishers, including some of the resources to which Murphy Library subscribes. However, Google Scholar only searches a fraction of the published scholarly literature.
5. How do I search by author, or limit to certain publications or dates?
Find the Advanced Scholar Search under Settings. This allows for author, publication and date range searching.
6. What about citation searching?
Google Scholar provides forward citation searching, automatically extracting and displaying works cited as separate results.