When I first discovered that Google had a scholarly tool, I was thrilled. I spent so much time on Google when doing assignments, already, that I expected research to be a piece of cake from then on. While I so feel as though it is a great searching tool when writing an essay or academic paper, it is not always the best resource to use.
Because Google Scholar is such a large search tool, the data is endless, and you can get so many articles or books that you may not have even known you were looking for. This can be a good thing and help you with your research, or it can be a bad thing and make it so that you are drowning in sources that you did not need in the first place. Because of this, I much prefer to use Library Databases. I find that they are more focused and while it can be harder to find things, it makes your research better in the long run because your sources are more focused to your needs and can help you in the long run.
I found that in my case, when researching to write my draft podcast transcript, I turned to Library Databases more, especially when I was looking for specific keywords. I'll admit that I tried Google Scholar first, but I felt as though it was way too much information and I became overwhelmed. Mind you, as I began to use the databases, I was able to use Google Scholar at the same time, in order to verify that certain articles were in fact what I was looking for.
In the future, I think that I will use the same strategy more or less that I used to find sources for this assignment: by searching through the databases and only using Google Scholar if I need to verify something or just for that little extra bit of help. I found that the more I used both, the better research I was able to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment