During this research process, I have learned many things. Finding scholarly articles was a tedious process that took time and patience. Thankfully, the internet made this task easier. I had not used Google Scholar or a library database until this semester, so this was a learning experience. Both Google Scholar and Cleveland State’s library database have strengths and weaknesses to work around to obtain the necessary sources for my paper.
Perhaps to the chagrin of librarians, I enjoyed Google Scholar more than the library database. One advantage of Google Scholar was the “Cited by” and “Related Articles” option. These are beneficial as it led me to additional corresponding papers. In my Screencast-O-Matic video, I clicked on “Cited by” for an article I was looking at, and it brought up an informative article on mental health problems in college students. A disadvantage to using Google Scholar was that it brought up research that I could not access. During my video, I found a great article on honors students, but it required payment to read. Overall, I enjoyed Google Scholar as it was simple to use and had many resources.
Conversely, I was not as fond of using Cleveland State’s library database. In the video, when I typed in “stress and honors students,” it brought up significantly fewer sources than on Google Scholar. There were only 15 results compared to the 117,000 on Google Scholar. Typing in just “stress and college students” brought more results, but that might diverge from my research population. An advantage of using the library database was accessing all the articles I found without cost. The library database was helpful, but it was not my preferred way to look for articles due to the low yield of results.
It was a profitable experience learning how to use Google Scholar and Cleveland State’s library database. I found I preferred Google Scholar over the library database as it had significantly more results for my topic. The ability to see related articles and articles that cited the source I was reading are beneficial features of Google Scholar. Both research databases have various advantages, but for me, Google Scholar outshined the library database.