Google Scholar Podcast Transcript
You may have used Google to search the web but have you heard of Google Scholar? Google Scholar is just like Google, except it limits your search to scholarly resources such as journal articles, books and research reports.
Google Scholar is at: http://scholar.google.com/ or accessed via the A to Z list on the library databases page.
Google Scholar search results will show you the title of the article, author and publications details, similar to what you find in a library database. The results are not displayed in any date order so you may see some older research at the top of the list. To sort by date order, click the "Recent Articles" link at the top of the results page. You may also see links for "cited by" this links to other articles that have included this article in their reference list or bibliography. The "related articles" link will find other similar papers. All of the search results display is fully explained on Google Scholar Help.
In your Google scholar search results you may notice links "Full text @ La Trobe" or "Find it @ La Trobe". The Full Text link indicates that the library subscribes to a database that has this article in full text. The Find it @ La Trobe indicates that a print version is available in the library. These links will automatically appear if you're using a computer on campus. However if you're using a computer at home you'll need to set up your Google Scholar preferences. Just click on the Scholar preferences link and enter Latrobe in the Library Links section. Tick the "La Trobe University Library, Full text @ La Trobe" in the search results and save this preference.
An advance scholar search is available and this allows you to restrict your search on articles by a particular author, in a particular publication or journal and within a specific time frame. You can also limit your search on a specific subject area such as medicine, biology or engineering. If you click on the About Google Scholar link you will find many more search tips.
These are just some of the features of Google Scholar. Remember the library has paid for you to access the many databases available in the A to Z list of databases so make sure you use a range of these resources and not just Google Scholar alone.