Introduction to Google Scholar

You are currently in the module on "Google Scholar and Citation Chaining" in a larger tutorial. Each research tutorial includes modules of topics related to the overall tutorial learning objectives. Please go through all the pages in this module by clicking on the “Next” button on the bottom of the page in order to progress. If you would like to track your progress, be sure to log in with your UNCG credentials at the top right of the module. Each module includes Quick Checks on every page. These Quick Checks do not produce a certificate; they are optional and do not track your progress. Certificates are created by completing a whole tutorial, so be sure to complete all the modules within a tutorial in order to generate a certificate. You can also take a screenshot of your progress page. 

UNCG Libraries Research Tutorials Help

Time needed to complete this module: 10 minutes

Learning Objectives:

• Distinguish between library databases and Google Scholar in order to determine when it is best to use each one
• Define citation chaining
• Use forward and backward citation chaining to locate resources

When you need to find resources for an assignment, where should you go? In our current information landscape, there are so many options that it can be overwhelming to determine where to start your research. This video explains the differences between Google, Google Scholar, and library databases.

Google Scholar searches a wide variety of information sources and focuses largely on scholarly articles. However, not everything you find on Google Scholar is what many professors and researchers would consider scholarly, and sometimes it can be difficult to tell if a source is a peer-reviewed, scholarly article. Google Scholar allows “natural language” searches, but it does not allow you to narrow your search to journals in a specific subject area the way library databases do. Also, unlike library databases, Google Scholar sometimes links to articles behind a paywall, which means you need to pay to access them. The short video below shows you how to connect Google Scholar to the UNCG Libraries so you can find full text for free. This video has no sound, and here is a textual guide of how to connect UNCG Libraries to Google Scholar. 

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