Marine, Freshwater and Aquaculture Sciences

Google and Google Scholar

Searching for information on Google or Google Scholar can be quick and effective. The problematic part is that you won’t always find what you need for your assessment. The information may be outdated, unreliable or even behind a paywall restricting your access.

Deakin Library subscribes to many biological and environmental science databases that contain quality information sources that you will not find via Google. By searching in a Library database you will retrieve more specific and reliable search results.

Be aware and beware...

Here are some reasons to be cautious when using Google and Google Scholar to search for relevant, credible, academic resources:

• Search results are not ranked according to your search criteria alone. This is because Google shapes search results based on what it knows about you from your previous searching activity.
• Search results can be influenced by wider interests including business, marketing, and political activity.
• Google Scholar results include non-academic and non-peer reviewed material.

So, when is it okay to use Google?

• To find publicly available information, e.g. government information, policy documents, or environmental data.
• For confirming citation or reference details.
• Google Scholar can be good for finding academic articles, but remember that it has limited ability to search certain biological and environmental science databases.

Tips for searching the web

You will usually find help pages, FAQs, or guides to searching on individual search engine homepages. But here are some common tips to keep in mind:

• Try to keep your search queries simple
• Carefully choose your keywords, and remember to think about alternate terms that could be used
• If you need to search on a single term, make the term as specific as possible
• Enclose "exact phrases" in quotation marks
• Leave out common words, such as the, and, in and at
• Search tools usually look for word variations, including single and plural terms e.g. Australia will match to Australian, Australia's, Australians etc.
• Use domains to limit your search to material on specific websites, e.g. .gov.au for Australian government sites

For further tips on using Google, check out this Conversation article written by a Deakin Software Engineering Academic, Muneera Bano: There is, in fact, a ‘wrong’ way to use Google. Here are 5 tips to set you on the right path

Google Scholar

Google Scholar provides a search of scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including articles, books, abstracts, theses and court opinions.

It is often possible to follow FIND IT@DEAKIN links in Google Scholar that will lead you to the full text of an article available through one of the databases Deakin subscribes to.

If you are accessing Google Scholar on campus, this usually happens automatically.

If you are accessing Google Scholar from another location, you will need to adjust the library links settings so Google Scholar recognises that you are from Deakin University.

See the Library's instructions to set up library links in Google Scholar.

Is your information credible and reliable?

When accessing information from websites, government websites (.gov) and the websites of universities (.edu) are more credible and reliable than commercial websites (.com).

Personal blogs, online forums and Wikipedia are not authoritative sources, though they may give you a basic overview and understanding of a topic, and provide links to more authoritative sources.

For tips how to assess and select credible and reliable information when searching the web, look at the Choose What to Use section of this guide. You will also find our recommendations for helpful Marine, Freshwater and Acquaculture Science websites under the Resource Recommendations - Websites section of this guide. 

Values, bias and assumptions underpin algorithms

Research has made it evident that our digital systems and platforms are far from bias free. Your own experiences of search engine results will reflect that. From filter bubbles to autocomplete predictions, the underlying algorithms shaping what you find is itself shaped by the values and opinions of people who are creating, collecting, selecting, viewing or using the data.