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Academic Success Center
Education Technology
Mennonite Historical Library
LIBRARY SERVICES & COVID-19

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a specialized Google search which allows you to narrow to scholarly literature, including articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions. Some of these sources are available freely on the internet, while others are available throu

About Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a specialized Google search which allows you to narrow to scholarly literature, including articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions. Some of these sources are available freely on the internet, while others are available through library databases and interlibrary loan.

There are benefits and drawbacks to using Google Scholar. The benefits begin with the ease and effectiveness of Google’s searching capabilities. Google Scholar looks and functions in a very similar fashion to a traditional Google search. Along with this end-user familiarity, the resource has competitively broad index coverage of sources and full text accessibility. Other benefits include citation analysis tools and researcher profiles.
 
Among its drawbacks, Google Scholar is a ‘black box’ product with a proprietary ranking algorithm and no traditional tech support. Bibliographic / citation information is often incorrect, and there is a lack of advanced search features. Locally developed online collections are sometimes hidden, grey literature coverage is weak as well as results for systematic reviews. Also, the resource also has a strong English language bias.

Syncing GG Resources with Google Scholar

You can sync Goshen College's library resources with Google scholar by using Library links. This feature in Google Scholar links to your college library to help find full text available from their journal databases and other subscriptions.

If you are on the Goshen College campus, books and journals owned by GC will be flagged with Available from Goshen in the margin.

If you are off campus, you can manually set this up with the instructions below. (You will also be prompted for your GC username and password if the journal is a licensed resource.)  

Begin at the Google Scholar home page.

  • Tap/click on the stacked lines in the upper right hand corner, and select Settings.
  • Select Library links
  • Search for Goshen College.
  • Select Goshen College -- Available from Goshen, then Save.

To retain the settings, you must have cookies turned on.  More information is available on the Google Scholar site.