Would you mark someone down for using Google Scholar to find additional articles when the usual databases didnt produce many?
Chat Forum
[closed]
Google Scholar - a question for the lecturers/academics amongst you.
-
Posted 1 year ago #
-
showing initiative if you ask me
knowing where to find relevant information is the important thing
Posted 1 year ago # -
On my course we are encouraged to use it.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Academics can be such arrogant tosspots. They probably marked you down for not quoting their own articles enough, and beefing up their ranking.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Er actually Kimbers, knowing where to find the info is a long long way from the most important thing, there are these places called libraries with very friendly people called librarians. Figuring out what is good and what is cack, and assembling it into a vaguely sensible argument, is the most important thing.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Should be no problem using this as a research device, provided anything obtained has been attributed correctly and there are no palgiarism issues. Wikipedia is the big no no.
Posted 1 year ago # -
hels - haha, bitter are we?!
Google scholar is DEFINATELY a legitimate search tool.
However, when you reference whatever you find you should not reference google scholar, but reference the JOURNAL the article has come from.
If it doesn't come from a Journal then you MUST aask yourself if you trust the source, if for instance you use a quote which comes up on "Joe blogs' website of interesting facts" Then you are very likely to get marked down!
Not quite Dr Dom
Posted 1 year ago # -
Yip, I limited the search to peer reviewed articles yet still got marked down for it. Having a "feedback" session on a failed essay tomorrow.
Posted 1 year ago # -
whats a library?
why on earth would i want to go there and wait while they figure out if they subscribe to a particular journal or whether they have to order a copy in, so that eventually youll get a photocopied version from the british libraryin the meantime you can use the internet to find whatever articles you like
yes youll have to make a judgement on whether the information is accurate/useful
id also recommend people sign this petition...
The Cost of Knowledge
Researchers taking a stand against ElsevierPosted 1 year ago # -
SBZ - as per DrDomRob's post, how did the marker know you obtained the article from Google Scholar?
Posted 1 year ago # -
They marked down my search strategy part of the essay for saying that I'd use Google Scholar in addition to the usual sources.
Posted 1 year ago # -
It sounds to me like you put "Google Scholar" down in your reference.
This would be wrong... I don't have time to give you an example but a quick google search (ironic) on appropriate referecing in academia should provide some guidance, ie
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/referencing/referencing%20skills/page_01.htm
Posted 1 year ago # -
They marked down my search strategy part of the essay for saying that I'd use Google Scholar in addition to the usual sources.
This is your issue.
You may use google scholar to do the search, but actually you used Web of knowledge, elsevier etc.
Google just did the boring bit of going to the relevent data base on your behalf.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Yes Kimbers, you can find whatever you like on the internet, as long as what you are not fussy about facts.
Academic journals can only continue to publish as long as people continue to pay for them, which in a nutshell means the good stuff is never free !! Unless you find it in a library... many libraries now have online journal subsrciptions too so you won't even have to remember how to work a book.
Posted 1 year ago # -
It would be inappropriate to mark you down in my opinion.
Although in my field (geography) i'm reasonably sure any legitimate article would also appear on a search in Web of Science.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Yes - Google Scholar isn't a resource in it's own right, it's a search engine that gives higher ranking to academic sources.
But they are quibbling. And it's quite sad that they have to give out students credit for using proper research sources. But I guess that ship sailed a long time ago.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hmmm - not convinced that was the issue either. In the subject area you get lots of articles which only have the abstracts available in the usual academic databases, but go to Google Scholar and you get the whole thing. You can also use the same search terms in GS and a database and get articles which didn't show up in the databeses search results but which are in the database when GS searches it.
Posted 1 year ago # -
P.S go on an publish the essay so we can critique it - is it interesting ??
Posted 1 year ago # -
But if SbZ stated he limited the results to peer reviewed journals then why be marked down? Twentieth century attitude to 21st century working.
Maybe put Jstor in there too under the "other search engines are available" proviso?Posted 1 year ago # -
References pointing to "informal" sources rather than the copyright holding publisher? Cheeky refs.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Thats interesting - maybe stuff has been pulled, come out of copyright etc before/after google bots have been through ??
I manage an Academic repository and our stuff gets set to become available once the publisher's copyright conditions allow, which varies with every single article. So I could see how that might happen.
You will never win this one by the way, the tutor has no doubt heard it all from students who think they are clevererer.
Posted 1 year ago # -
hels - not unless you want to read about the complete lack of evidence to show the effectiveness of one method of stroke rehab compared to another.
The search engines within academic databases are crap. Why use a second rate search engine.....
GRRRRRRRR.
Posted 1 year ago # -
If you're working through a University's network Google Scholar often provides a link to the full text of the article in the library.
As with all research, the most important thing is the quality of the article. This is usually measured indirectly by looking at the quality of the Journal (read up on 'Impact Factors' and see how good your sources are).
Increasingly, citations are being used as a measure of the quallity of individual articles and your library should be able to help you find this data for each of your sources. If you want evidence of how ace your sources are, take this data to your feedback session.
If you referenced everything properly (and didn't just look at the abstract) you shouldn't be marked down for this.
Posted 1 year ago # -
hels he did say he was talking about articles so i assumed that he was referring to ones only in journals
i think the ops problem is that he didnt reference his journal article correctly ?
and libraries are dying on their arses at the moment,
partly because an annual journal subscription costs thousands and individual articles are 20 quid a pop
you already pay a few hundred+ to get an article published yet you write it yourself and peer reviews are free
exactly why should elsiever, springer, wiley etc make 36p profit! out of every pound it costs to read an article?
not to mention that most science funding comes from government spending or charity donnations
in the USA if you take money from the NIH you have to put your articles in a public database
and PLOS etc publish for free tooPosted 1 year ago # -
Funding cuts mate.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I virtually always use Scholar rather than Inspec or Web of Knowledge- assuming you're looking at the stuff published in reputable/mainstream places and not http://www.bonkersnewscience.com I don't see what the problem/difference is.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Everything was referenced properly.
Posted 1 year ago # -
We're veering well OT here, but
nd libraries are dying on their arses at the moment,
partly because an annual journal subscription costs thousands and individual articles are 20 quid a popPublic libraries don't subscribe to academic journals.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hels, that's not the issue with Elsevier.
The issues include their bundling pricing policy, the fact they they publish publicly funded research but charge massive amounts for it, and the way that reviewers are expected to work for free.
In effect, they are lending their name out to scientists for a fat fee.PLoS1 provides an alternative model.
- I have worked with many STM publishers, I do know something about their operations.
Posted 1 year ago # -
It takes a while for citations to work through the system - so is not a good measure for recently published articles, which is what you should be hitting first. Anything less then a year old won't have much in the way of citations.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Apols, I know nothing about public libraries I have only ever worked in academic libraries.
BTW George - you can get a lot online at the NLS and I think it's free ? You just have to register.
Posted 1 year ago # -
SBZ,
Google Scholar didn't exist when I left the fine academic world, but I am a professional scientific researcher and peer review articles for a few reasonably respected journals. Google Scholar is my first (and often only) port of call for finding relevant work.
I've never seen an essay that had a "search strategy" laid out at the start, but each field has its own anomalies. Back in the days when library computers were in a different building and had green and black text I remember being given specific search tasks to undertake, obviously that was about showing you could use the specific tool you had been taught about, and the "correct" answer was targeting a specific paper. I can see how a modern better tool could undermine that exercise.
I suspect the problem is (s)he thought the field was quite narrow and so would have an easy essay to mark. You've opened up a can of worms and given him a difficult essay to mark which invites criticism on both why you deviated from the original (expected) specification and possibly arrived at a different conclusion than he expected.
Posted 1 year ago # -
No. Why would you mark someone down for actually searching for papers? Many of the citation indexes dont include certain volumes or journals (I have a paper which can only be found in google scholar for example, because its a chapter in a USGS book and that book is not included in science direct or web of knowledge etc.). Some journals are simply not subscribed to a citation service (I think it costs them money to be included) the usual sources arent necessarily comprehensive. By searching a range of database, of which Google Scholar is one, then you are more likely to find what you need.
So, if you found an actual book chapter or journal article by searching using google scholar then you should be fine so long as you reference the original article and its place of publication. I would never want to read that you have used google scholar (or science direct or web of science/knowledge) as the search tool is irrelevant. So long as the referenced article is a proper academic source and not some crap trawled from the internet then its all OK.
Posted 1 year ago # -
My guess is that there was a problem with your search strategy on the databases (Medline, AMED etc? through Ovid?). Don't want to sound patronising but they do exactly what you tell them, so quality of search = quality of results (generally). Google Scholar does clever stuff.
Worth sticking reference into google scholar to look at their "cited by" link, quite good way of widening your search.
Might just be that the marker doesnt really know what they're doing.
I have vested interest, medical librarian university/NHS.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hels - thanks for that. I'll have a look.
Poly - that's an interesting idea. Possibly not far away from the truth either.
Colonel Wax - original search returned 4 papers - minimum of 6 was needed for the purposes of the essay. Google Scholar produced another couple from good sources which were either missing from other databases or not picked up by the search engine within the database itself.
Posted 1 year ago #
Topic Closed
This topic has been closed to new replies.
