An Entry Into Research: Google Scholar

You’ve all used Google.  Google pulls its information from any and all online sources, so you know that if you do a regular Google search, you might get information from a online magazine, a personal website, a government publication, Wikipedia, a business site, a professional society’s website, YouTube, Facebook, a newspaper or news feed, and more.  You’ll also get an AI summary overview that pulls from this wide variety of sources.

On the other hand, Google Scholar restricts the type of information sources it uses to sources such as professional journals, established organizations, government websites – sources that undergo checking for validity of information (e.g., the U.S. Census Bureau, the Pew Research Center, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). By restricting the type of information sources, a search on Google Scholar may yield information that’s more appropriate to an academic research project, since the information is more likely to come from valid sources.

Here’s an AI explanation of the differences between Google and Google Scholar (from ChatGPT, accessed 5/6/26):

“When you search on regular Google, you’re using a general search engine designed to find everything on the web—news, blogs, videos, company sites, Wikipedia pages, and more. In contrast, Google Scholar is built specifically to find academic and scholarly sources.

Here’s the difference in practical terms:

1. Type of results

• Google: Broad and mixed. You might get helpful sources, but also opinion pieces, advertisements, or unreliable websites.
• Google Scholar: Focused on academic materials like peer-reviewed journal articles, books, theses, and conference papers.

2. Credibility and authority

• Google: You have to evaluate each result carefully. Anyone can publish online, so quality varies a lot.
• Google Scholar: Most results come from scholars, researchers, or academic publishers, so they are generally more reliable for college-level work.

3. Use in college assignments

• Google: Good for getting background information, understanding a topic, or finding quick facts.
• Google Scholar: Better for finding sources you can cite in essays and research papers.

4. Search experience

• Google: Simple and fast, but less precise for academic research.
• Google Scholar: Lets you filter by date, see how often a work is cited, and track related research—tools that help you dig deeper into a topic.

5. Access to full texts

• Google: Many results are freely accessible.
• Google Scholar: Some articles are free, but many require access through a college library.

A helpful way to think about it:

• Use Google to learn about a topic.
• Use Google Scholar to find evidence to support your ideas.”

View the following video which explains how to use Google Scholar in searching a science topic – and know that the process is the same for all topics.