MUSC 3190 Finding Related Sources

What About Google Scholar?

Some of you might use Google Scholar when researching topics for your classes.

Google Scholar can give you tons of results -- some of which are great, and some of which can miss the mark. If you want to use this database as a tool in your research toolkit, there's a few things to know.

One downside of Google Scholar is that you can't filter by source type. You can't get just articles, for example, and so you'll have books and other sources mixed in.

Another downside of Google Scholar is that there's no "peer-reviewed" filter. If you want to check to see if an article you find there is from a peer-reviewed journal, you'll have to check for yourself (luckily, we've got a how-to video ready for you!).

Finding More Sources

One thing Google Scholar is great for is adding to your reference list once you've done some research. If you have an article you like, try searching it in Google Scholar. Click the "Cited By" button underneath the title. You'll then be taken to a list of articles published later that cited your original article.

Screenshot showing Google Scholar "Cited by" button

For more about how to find related sources, check out this guide or watch this video: