Google Scholar is a vertical search engine indexing only a select portion of the web. It searches across many disciplines to find journal articles, books, theses & dissertations, court opinions, and other scholarly content from academic publishers, professional societies, and select academic web sites. There is currently no way to limit to peer-reviewed journals, but you can easily search journal names to determine their status.
One advantage of using Google Scholar is that the interface is comforting and familiar to anyone who uses Google. This lowers the learning curve of finding scholarly information.
There are a number of useful differences from a regular Google search. Google Scholar allows you to:
Although it is free to search in Google Scholar, most of the content is not freely available. Google does its best to find copies of restricted articles in public repositories. If you are at an academic or research institution, you can also set up a library connection that allows you to see items that are available through your institution.
You can connect Google Scholar to the MJC Library (or other library) so it will identify those sources available through the Library databases. This is configured automatically on computers you use in labs on East and West campuses. To configure this at home, go to "hamburger menu" and choose Settings, then choose Library Links. You can link to the Modesto Junior College by typing it into the search box, selecting it, and saving your search. (NOTE: This function is currently under construction.)
An MJC Librarian can help you access Google Scholar, add the MJC Library to the settings, conduct effective searches, and determine if the journal articles you find are peer reviewed.
The Google Scholar results page differs from the Google results page in a few key ways. The search result page is, however, different and it is worth being familiar with the different pieces of information that are shown. Let's have a look at the results for the search term "machine learning.”
Google Scholar search results using the keywords "machine" and "learning"