Gaga over Google? Scholar in the Social Sciences

Abstract

Purpose To provide a summary of the main features of Google Scholar. Design/methodology/approach Reviews, contextualizes and provides a summary of Google Scholar. Findings This article compares the results of a sample search on “homeschooling in Google Scholar against the results in three fee‐based article index databases in the social sciences: PsycINFO, Social Science Citation Index, and ERIC. Comparisons are done in the areas of content, currency, relevancy, and overlap. Google Scholar yields more results and a greater variety in its types of sources along with a higher rate of relevancy, but less currency. Ultimately, Scholar’s lack of quality control and inability to let the user manipulate data make it less effective than the fee‐based databases at finding scholarly material in the social sciences. Originality/value Provides a useful summary for information professionals.

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