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Criminal Justice

Google Scholar Fast Facts

  • Unlike the regular Google search engine, Google Scholar searches scholarly publications for articles, patents, and legal documents.
  • Google Scholar uses its own criteria to consider whether a publication is scholarly.  This may not be the same criteria used by your instructor so always evaluate the sources before you use them!
  • Google Scholar will find substantially less documents than Google.  However, the documents will usually be more appropriate and specific to the topic.
  • Google Scholar will offer citations but does not always provide the full-text of articles!
  • Like Google you can search with a Basic or Advanced search.  The Advanced search offers users more ways to narrow and refine their searches.
  • Google Scholar allows users to set their preferences for searching including the types of documents they want to find.  It also allows importation of citation data into bibliographic tools like EndNote and RefWorks.