Doing scholarly research the Google way

Eric Van Susteren
Staff Writer

Once again, Google comes to the rescue with its exciting, or at least helpful, “Google Scholar” tool.

The worst part about writing research papers isn’t the dull and arduous writing process or even the necessity of seemingly excessive citations. But they’re called “research papers” for a reason. By far the worst part is the incredible amount of time and energy one must devote to finding reputable academic sources and translating the stale writing they contain.

Any technique to cut down on the time this process takes would be a welcome change for any student, including me. Of course, I’m not condoning cutting corners and using Wikipedia as a source. There are other, more effective tools to shorten the research section of the essay.

Google Scholar is one such tool, especially when it’s coupled with our extensive SJSU library database.

The library database by itself is nice, if somewhat unwieldy. I can’t say how many times I’ve found myself looking through several separate databases in search of a specific article. The Google Scholar tool bypasses this drawn-out process.

Using Google’s revolutionary relevancy algorithm, Google Scholar can search through all the available sites in the SJSU library database to find the correct scholarly article.

Here’s how:

(1) Go to Google.com and select “Scholar” from the drop-down menu at the top of the screen that says “more.”

(2) Click the link that says “Scholar Preferences.” It’s right next to the “Search” button.

(3) On the preferences page, click on the box under the “Library Links” section and type in “San Jose State University.”

(4) Save your preferences at the bottom of the page.

(5) Search for your desired topics using keywords like “earthquake” or “Nutella.”

(6) The articles that are available in full text through SJ library will appear on the right side of the screen. Using the superior Google algorithm, the articles are sorted with greater accuracy and relevancy than they would be on the regular databases.