Google or other search engines may get you started with your research and some of the results may be credible ones, but be careful, learn to evaluate the source.
Information freely available on the web does not cover everything and a lot of information doesn’t show up in your search results. So to find this hidden information from the ‘invisible web’ or ‘deep web’ as it’s sometimes called, you need to have more tools at your disposal, for instance scholarly journals and individual databases.
Your university library subscribes to hundreds of subject specific databases and e-journals not available on the free web. Many of these will have been selected by the university academic teams.
When you have done some preliminary web searching to scope your topic, remember to use Library Search to find out what your university collections have on your topic . Your library subject guides will identify some of the key resources relevant to you and help get you further with your research.
Check out your library resources for suggestions related to your subject Subject Guides
This is a search engine that searches academic literature. It pulls information from university repositories, journal publishers, and other ‘scholarly’ identified websites. Google Scholar has many useful features to help with your research, for example
However there are limitations:
Welcome to this walkthrough on using Google Scholar. Google Scholar is a freely accessible search engine that indexes scholarly articles across a wide range of disciplines. It is a useful tool for finding academic literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts, and technical reports.
To begin, go to scholar.google.com. You'll see a simple search bar, similar to the standard Google homepage. Enter your keywords or search phrase here. For example, if you're researching climate change and agriculture, you might type in "climate change impact on crop yields". Press Enter or click the search icon to view your results. The results page displays a list of scholarly articles. Each entry typically includes the title, author(s), publication source, and year. You may also see links to full-text versions on the right-hand side, often hosted on university repositories or publisher websites.
If you're affiliated with a university, you can link Google Scholar to your institution's library to access more full-text content. To do this, click the menu icon in the top left corner, go to Settings, then "Library links", and search for your institution. Tick the box next to your university and click “Save.” When reviewing results, you can click on the article title to view more details or access the full text if available. Under each result, you'll find options to cite, save, or explore related articles. Clicking 'Cite' opens a pop-up with formatted citations in various styles like APA, MLA, and Chicago. You can also export citations to reference managers like EndNote or RefWorks.
To refine your search, use the filters on the left-hand side. You can limit results by date, sort by relevance or date, and even create alerts for new publications on your topic. If you want to search within a specific journal or author, use the advanced search option by clicking the menu icon and selecting 'Advanced search'. This allows you to narrow your results by author, publication, date range, and more.
Google Scholar also provides metrics for authors and journals. If you click on an author’s name, you’ll see their profile with a list of publications, citation counts, and h-index. This can help you identify influential researchers in your field. That concludes our walkthrough of Google Scholar. It's a powerful tool for discovering academic literature and staying current with research in your area of interest. If you have any questions or need further help, feel free to reach out to your library team.
Choose Settings > Library Links > Search 'Falmouth University' > Select 'Falmouth University - Full Text @ Falmouth' box > Click 'Save'.
There’s nothing wrong with Wikipedia if you use it as you would any other encyclopaedia - for basic information, simple facts or a quick answer to a query. There are generally few original sources on Wikipedia because anybody can edit the pages. However, there are usually some links to sources and articles at the bottom of the article page, which you might find useful for your research.
Make sure you are critical of the information and only cite from original and reliable sources. Do not cite Wikipedia.
Remember - Wikipedia is a good place to start, but don’t stay there!
