What is Google Scholar; how to use it for academic research – Business Insider

Google Scholar is a search engine Google created to parse though a massive database of scholarly literature, looking for the best matches for your search terms.
Google Scholar was released in beta form in late 2004, and soon used far and wide by students, researchers, authors, and others. The search engine not only grants users to access vast troves of information, but it also makes it easy to cross reference things against other sources and keep up with the latest research as it is published.
And what you won’t get on Google Scholar are search results from non-academic sources like personal blogs, social media posts, YouTube videos, or other less substantive and reliable sources. 
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If you want fun and games, go with Google Games; if you want scholarly research, stick with Google Scholar.
Using Google Scholar, found at scholar.google.com, you can access these kinds of sources (and more):
Here’s everything you need to know about the powerful research tool:
Anyone can access the search database. And while it’s built with college and grad students, researchers, and other academics in mind, anyone can reap its benefits.
Here are just a few examples of what you can do through Google Scholar: 
Google Scholar is free to use as a search tool. However, since it pulls information from many sources, it’s possible that some of the results you pull up will require a login or even a payment to access the full information.
Whether an article is free depends on a variety of factors, like the publication and its funding agency mandates. Go to the Public Access section of the Google Scholar profile to view its mandates — if a free version is available, you’ll see an HTML or PDF link on the right side. 
Still, descriptions or abstracts are typically free and provide an overview of the article’s content so you can make an informed decision about whether to spend money. 
Remember that not all scholarly research is created equal — different journals have different standards for publication. Not every article listed on Google Scholar will be peer-reviewed (a peer review is when the author’s fellow researchers and scholars in the same field review the article’s content for research quality). 
To find out whether a research article on Google Scholar is peer-reviewed, the best strategy is to visit the website of the journal the article is published in. Most peer-reviewed journals will explicitly state they are peer-reviewed.
Overall, Google Scholar provides an excellent avenue into scholarly research, and while it does have its drawbacks, it’s a tool that can be used to help clarify, explore and inform users about a wide variety of topics. 
Just as Google Earth can help guide you around the planet and Google Translate can demystify other languages, Google Scholar can unlock the world of academia for all.
On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider’s parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company’s advertising practices.
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