Google Scholar..
 

Maybe I'm slow, maybe no one else has noticed..

But there's an awesome new feature on Google -- Google Scholar.

I've got access to a lot of scholarly sources through my work/school, but it's a pain in the ass to log into most of them. Google Scholar lets me search stuff like Journal of Pyschiatry, Neurosurg. Psychiatry, all sorts of awesome scholarly journals.

A search for "amygdala" got me 4.1 million articles from journals!

For any of you who read them often, I'd recommend it. :)

Sweet find! My weekend just got booked solid.

I'd say that access through your academic library will probably be more effective.

Here's a common message from Google Scholar:


You are trying to access material included in JSTOR, an online journal archive made available to researchers through participating libraries.
Unfortunately, you do not have access to JSTOR from your current location.

Authorized users may be required to log in via their library website. For more information about obtaining the complete article, please see Access Options. The citation, abstract, and first page are available below.

It is another way to search, though.

Thanks for the significant contrib,

Art

Sorry, I meant to include the link:

Google Scholar

And yea, it's not as robust as some of the true Scholarly Journal seraches, but it's fast and I can use it from any computer with internet access :)

Most good college libraries have the same feature.

My college gives any current student access to its online resources, including several hundred online journal databases, ejournals, online reference sources, and research guides--and it doesn't matter where you are (offcampus you have to log in).

While this is nice, a lot of the articles I would want to read (I searched for Holinshed's Chronicles) seem to be off-limits for those not in a subscribing library.

I use academic databases on a fairly regular basis. Generally, I don't like Google Scholar. I often run into the problem that ARTelevision described. That said, one benefit of Google Scholar that I have noticed is that in its search results it also lists where particular articles and authors have been cited by others. That's great because I'm often interested in research related to a particular author. When google gives me info about who cites that author, it's helpful.

Google scholar is also nice if you don't have access to other academic search engines.

Do you get the actual papers, or just the abstracts?

Yeah, I didn't know about it, and it sounds cool, but I think I'll stick with my college's journal resources.

But it may come in handy, though.

Art hit the nail on the head. I'm in school myself, and have certainly used G_scholar for research. However, it's far less usefull than the resources my university makes available to me.

8 times out of 10, the G_scholar link is an abstract; the actual article is available to members of whatever. Point is, I can't see it. If it's not a "full article is unavailable" thing, it's the citations; they're not available unless you're a member of whatever.

I find far more often a regular google serach is more useful. That way I get actual articles. If you want a handy link for paper writing, let me share THIS baaad boy:

Citation Machine

guess what it does? makes citations...

I do health science research, so www.pubmed.com is still my savior.

Through New York Public Library I get access to Galenet, a huge resource of articles done by professors and scholars. All you have to do is give your NYPL card number. I can PM you a bogus one that'll work.
*whistles and walks away*