Using Google Scholar

Google Scholar. Finally, something I am familiar with! Well, somewhat familiar. Again, I learned some incredible research tricks that I can put to excellent use in future research work.

·       Search phrase: Influenza epidemic of 1918-1919

·       I added the words in the U.S. to limit my results.

·       I did not use any other limiters.

·       This search brought far more articles than I have been able to get through the databases I have previously searched. However, not all these articles are directly related to what I am looking for. If I am not careful, I could suffer from information overload. There is NO WAY I will look through 12,300 results! I did get an interesting book reference that I will see if our library carries, though.

·       Because I have been using Google Scholar for my class research assignments over the past two years, I found this method to be much easier than navigating the library databases. This is only because of familiarity, though. The more I practice using the library resources, the easier they will be to use. Also, the library offers topic specific databases which can narrow the results list to something far more manageable and for the most part, related to what I am specifically looking for. Too many options could make me uncertain about my topic again. At this point in the research process, I probably want to be focused on the question I already selected for a project and not be tempted to start over with some new idea that catches my fancy.

·       One feature I was not aware of was the “Cited” link at the bottom of each result. I really would have loved using this feature for past research. It is definitely a tool I will use in the future.

Comments

  1. SamNovember 9, 2020 at 10:31 AM

    Hello, nice work on this. I'm glad you're familiar with Google Scholar already. I find that it works best with very specific or distinctive search terms, so it might be worth trying terms related to some narrower aspect of the flu epidemic (especially if it is related to a place or a person's name). --Sam

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reflections on Kuhlthau Article

     Since returning to school after thirty years, searching for information has been both the foundation and bane of my existence. Most of my classes have required research in one form or another, typically culminating in a final project or paper. In general, I love the idea of research and I fully understand how important research is in gaining and furthering knowledge. However, in practice, I have experienced great uncertainty and anxiety in the process of seeking information. Long gone are the days when research is limited to the physical resources of a local library. Suddenly, I have access to a whole world of information right at my fingertips. Access to virtually unlimited information sounds like a good thing. But I have found it to be extremely overwhelming. Just coming up with an idea for a research topic can be challenging enough. Sorting through great quantities of information which often seems inconsistent and conflicting can be down right discouraging. Typi...
Read more

Information about Information

PART 1        It is strange how confusing living in the information age can be. Real news, fake news. How is it even possible to tell the difference? This week's instruction was centered on just this dilemma. I was pretty excited to learn that there are some specific techniques that can be used to help determine what is reliable information and what is not. My first assignment was to read a fact-check page from the DigiPro project. The topic that caught my attention was, "When did we begin standing for the national anthem?" I am not certain why I expected this article to simply be a history lesson. I was reminded in the introduction that the tradition of standing for the national anthem has a much more political context in US sports, particularly the NFL. Much of this article was primarily informational in nature, and I found it to be quite interesting. However, most of the embedded links led to a page on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine stating that the URL h...
Read more

The Background Search

 This week, I was asked to respond directly to questions, so I am including them in this post. Part One: Background Information from a Web Search   1.      What is your research topic? This should be a general area of interest at this point. It should NOT be a research question yet. Spanish Flu: The Corona Virus Pandemic is often compared to the 1918 Pandemic often known as the Spanish Flu   2.      Select an unfamiliar Search Engine or Metasearch Engine from the list linked in the lesson and run a search for your topic. DO NOT use Google or Wikipedia for this part of the assignment!   Wait!!! There are other ways to search for information???   a.        Tell me which search engine or metasearch engine you used.     Bing b.        What new ideas or information did you find about the topic?    Just browsing brought up actua...
Read more