The Role Of Google Scholar In Literature Review

Role Of Google Scholar In Literature Review
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Introduction

According to (Haddaway et al., 2015), Google scholar is used as the web-based search engine catalogue with academic resources of any content having nearly 100 million content records of literature academics.  According to the evidence (Haddaway et al., 2015), Google Scholar is known to be a free search engine that combines information from throughout the internet irrespective of any year, time, or period. As a result, it has drawn a lot of interest as a strategy to be applied in the use of resources for literature, especially for grey literature, which is required by published studies. However, the use of Google scholar also considered a stand-alone resource has been hotly contested, and its efficacy in literature review searching is still under accurate investigation.   Depending on the effectiveness of Google scholar in literature review relevant articles, books, journals, and case studies from the environment, science, arts, philosophy, or other disciplines can be investigated using systematic literature research studies. One can also discover the fundamental use of google scholar in writing a literature review at the time when the required sources and information are specifically searched for, the bulk of the literature identified using Web of Science was also located using Google scholar.

Fig: A literature review using google scholar

Google Scholar And Its Use In The Literature Review

As opined by (Halevi et al., 2017), during the conduction of the literature review the author comes in requirements to use sources of information relevant to the topic, and here searching for that required information can be possible with the use of Google scholar. Google Scholar as a search engine option with any kind of sources and relevant information plays an integral part in research where nearly 11500 journals are presented under the journal citation reports (Orduna-Malea et al., 2017). Google Scholar helps the researcher to sift through the information to the relevant research outcome. Online citation databases and search engines like Google scholar help with the number of academic books, research content, articles, and journals that are used in a rapid sense. Google scholar works as an effective tool to search research content, sources, and information for literature review where it can be used to supplement the searches done by the researcher. With the use of Google scholar, documents can be obtained which are not usually included in the general library’s database. Google scholar is mostly popular due to its free access offering to several researchers. According to (López-Cózar, et al., 2017), google scholar does not store the consisting citations within a particular database but a regular crawl in internet information takes place to be used in literature review citations. To know more about google Scholar students can take help from SourceEssay thesis help Experts.

Source: (Library.ceu.edu. (2022)

The research has also been made where it has been observed that search for major literature review content and required sources made through the use of google scholar more than other websites of citations. However moderate overlapping in outcomes was observed in a similar search engine used in google scholar which may miss some fundamental literature contexts. A general search in google scholar may fail in the literature review based on some unpopular case studies and news where the manual search for the name involved in the case study or the name of the organization and people in that news can be useful to search about the content. For instance, the use of systematic review in the literature review, google scholar can be used to find specific data sources, and studies. It is also used as a powerful and additional search engine platform considered as the traditional search optimization rather than the modern way of search methods. Use of this tool to the ultimate transparency can be made as per the catalogue in Google scholar which to is used in maintaining a higher level of transparency with the utmost ability in an updated critical way in systematic literal review. 

According to (Gusenbauer, M., & Haddaway, N. R. (2020). The use of google scholar as the web-based academic search engine can be used under the secondary synthesis where not only systematic review and metal analysis are considered but also the literature review can be taken into the consideration. Activities and criteria involved in the literature review are based on real and relevant evidence. The proportion to be used in traditional academic literature research can be obtained through the degree of screening which is known to be used in quite less proportion of the volume of the literature review observed through the use of sources and information. The improved version of google scholar in literature review has been in great use in iterations considering the previous critiques of the services related to the context of academic citation database as per the issue in the citation. There are various debates observed in the usefulness and efficacy in the application of Google scholar in literature review as the academic search engine tool where some modifications made on the extent and service towards the unequivocal utilization. 

Limitations Of Google Scholars’ Effectiveness In The Literature Review

According to (Gardner T & Inger S, 2021), Google scholar is known to be one of the top search engine tools applied by researchers who are in expectation to prepare scholarly content in the literature review. There are various reasons for which it can be said that Google scholar is not always familiar as the review of the literature reveals that there are various limitations observed to its consideration and usefulness.

Lack of enough curation: As evidenced by (Gusenbauer M & Haddaway NR, 2020), the internet consisting of full of scholarly content with the corresponding availability of information, and data with specific formats and quality. According to (Gardner T & Inger S, 2021), At the time when Google scholar travels in the interest seeks to find out that suitable scholarly content, it doesn’t guarantee that researcher always able to get its presence and accessibility. It does not always make sense that the appointed researchers work according to the logical structure and unlike to those curated tools, Google Scholar as a ’search engine tool does not have that transparency according to the indexed guidelines which define the reason to collect the source and make it available. As per the recent studies it has been observed that Google scholar is not necessarily curated as it can also be unsuitable to the primary review of literature for the resources along with all the possible lacking technological features, flaws, and systematic searching opportunities. According to this context, Google scholar may unable to meet several FAIR principles including findable, accessible, interpretable and reusable which also cannot be classed only as an accurate and more of professional search engine tool.

Source: (StudyCorgi.com. (2022)

Search results rankings: Looking at some of the literature reviews where Google scholar results can be dated, and this represents a problem at the time when people are unable to beyond the very first page of the results during the search for the entire paper or content. This becomes a major limitation and restricts the use of Google scholar in the literature review. According to make my assignment help experts the citation count for a literature review is known to be the key factor in the Google scholar results ranking and this is concerned with the high impact factor resources which can be cited with extensive suitability around the internet sources.

There are some terminologies like citation lag where old version contents are cited and new publications may retrieve under Google scholar and due to this the researcher face issue during the time of finding sources and new publications in Google scholar (Nicholas et al., 2017).

Google Scholar May Replicate One’s Search: According to (Korjonen, D.2022), it’s not possible or easy to replicate any search in Google scholar for retrieving similar references in repetition. Due to this reason, any carelessness during search or citations with the use of Google scholar in the literature review mat leads to a lack of transparency and may create replication issues. Care and attention for these search activities take more time than expected where references may be dropped unknowingly from Google scholar, and one may not even be aware of what might be missing.

Not enough comprehensive and limited in use: According to the analysis by (Libguides.ecu.edu. (2022), Google Scholar has coverage in a wide-spreading range but it’s not enough comprehensive and cannot be considered the only source or website to use in the literature review. This website does not provide that particular criterion for the reason which makes the outcomes more scholarly. Outcomes even vary with the corresponding quality and also do not always allow the researchers to limit the results with respect to either peer reviews or discipline. To know more students can take help from online assignment help experts form SourcEssay.

Difficult and inaccuracy: Google scholar doesn’t always offer updated content over any old ones and this citation database can also be difficult to manage and may be inaccurate when not used with proper knowledge about its uses and applicability (Rovira et al., 2019).

Best Way To Use Google Scholar In The Literature Review

According to (Paperpile. (2022), search for any literature review content and for citation, Google scholar results to utmost 1000 findings but there are some pro tips or recommendations which can be considered to explore the tool in an effective way. It’s important to know the way to locate the relevant evidence, journals, books, or articles on Google scholar. Putting together a list of these effective pro tips can help to save more time and also get maximum effective results related to any certain topic under literature review.

The first is to remember that Google scholar searches are not too sensitive which implies the search for Human resources management in Google scholar would produce the same outcomes as the search for management in human resources. So anyone does not need to focus on the key terminology used for the search during the time of using Google scholar as the search engine tool.

Source: ( Paperpile, 2022)

The second is the necessity of using keywords instead of any long sentence in the toolbar. For example, if the research topic to write a literature review is how to handle an organization in an urban area. Then for wrong or regular searches, one can search through sentences like “what are the steps to handle organization located in urban areas?”. However, searching through this long sentence in Google scholar can give less relevant results and couldn’t meet the query. The actual trick here is to use certain keywords and search for them like organizations in urban areas, ways to control organizations, and others relevant.

The third tip is to add the year of the search phrase to get the most relevant journals, books, or articles which have been published in that particular year or period. 

According to dissertation assignment help experts, the fourth tip is to use quotes to search for an exact and accurate match. Here one needs to put the search phrase info for certain quotes which can be searched through the exact matches of that particular phrase through the body text or title.

The fifth tip is to use the sides to control and adjust the search outcome where the use of these options available in the left-hand panel can restrict the search outcomes.

Conclusion

After the end of this blog, a conclusion can be made. The above evidence and discussion show the fact that google scholar is an effective search engine tool used in the literature review to find specific and relevant content, articles, and journals to be used in literature. However, it has also been observed in the discussion that it cannot be replaced in place of traditional academic citations used for the purpose of research citation. There are various limitations present in the use of this tool where it restricts the utmost expected search for literature review. Google scholar has been evaluated as not so transparent search option for research. There are some tips added to make this tool a convenient and reliable one then can be used as a viable alternative for traditional search options. Google Scholar has been obtained as the toolbar to be used as a moderate impressive supplement for the purpose of searching and also raise the comprehensiveness of searches for research evidence. 

Reference List

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Gardner T & Inger S.(2021). How readers discover content: Trends in reader behaviour from 2005 to 2021.

Google Scholar search tips. Library.ceu.edu. (2022).

Haddaway NR, Collins AM, Coughlin D, Kirk S (2015) The Role of Google Scholar in Evidence Reviews and Its Applicability to Grey Literature Searching. PLoS ONE 10(9): e0138237.

Halevi, G., Moed, H., & Bar-Ilan, J. (2017). Suitability of Google Scholar as a source of scientific information and as a source of data for scientific evaluation—Review of the literature.

How to use Google scholar: the ultimate guide – Paperpile. Paperpile. (2022).

Korjonen, D. (2022). Google Scholar: a review of literature examining its effectiveness as a search tool. Ifis.org.

Literature Review: Outline, Strategies, and Examples | Blog StudyCorgi.com. StudyCorgi.com. (2022).

López-Cózar, E. D., Orduña-Malea, E., Martín-Martín, A., & Ayllón, J. M. (2017).

Nicholas D, Boukacem‐Zeghmouri C, Rodríguez‐Bravo B & Xu J, Watkinson A, Abrizah A, Herman E, Świgoń M.(2017).

Orduna-Malea, E., Martín Martín, A., & Delgado Lopez-Cozar, E. (2017).

Research Guides: Google Scholar: Advantages/Limitations of Google Scholar.

Rovira C, Codina L, Guerrero-Solé F & Lopezosa C.(2019).

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