Non-scholarly sites showing up in Google Scholar

Fri Sep 25 16:45:33 EDT 2015

Dear all,

The distinction between what is scholarly and non-scholarly has always been blurry if you ask me. The value added of Google Scholar does not lie in being selective, but in being broad, fast, multilingual and good in full text search. For selectivity there are other options. But I opt to train undergraduates to discern between what is relevant and what is irrelevant and what is based on sound research and what not instead of a wholesale advise to use this or that search engine. That is the value added of the librarian ;-)

Best,
Jeroen

[101-innovations-icon-very-small]  101 innovations: tools database<http://bit.ly/innoscholcomm-list> | survey<https://101innovations.wordpress.com/>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeroen Bosman, faculty liaison for the Faculty of Geosciences
Utrecht University Library<http://www.uu.nl/library>
email: j.bosman at uu.nl<mailto:j.bosman at uu.nl>
telephone: +31.30.2536613
mail: Postbus 80124, 3508 TC, Utrecht, The Netherlands
visiting address: room 2.50, Heidelberglaan 3, Utrecht
web: Jeroen Bosman<http://www.uu.nl/university/library/en/disciplines/geo/Pages/ContactBosman.aspx>
twitter @jeroenbosman/ @geolibrarianUBU
profiles: : Academia<http://uu.academia.edu/JeroenBosman> / Google Scholar<http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-IfPy3IAAAAJ&hl=en> / ISNI<http://www.isni.org/0000000028810209> /
Mendeley<http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/jeroen-bosman/> / MicrosoftAcademic<http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Author/51538592/jeroen-bosman> / ORCID<http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5796-2727> / ResearcherID<http://www.researcherid.com/ProfileView.action?queryString=KG0UuZjN5WmCiHc%252FMC4oLVEKrQQu%252BpzQ8%252F9yrRrmi8Y%253D&Init=Yes&SrcApp=CR&returnCode=ROUTER.Success&SID=N27lOD6EgipnADLnAbK> /
ResearchGate<http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeroen_Bosman/> / Scopus<http://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.url?authorId=7003519484> /  Slideshare<http://www.slideshare.net/hierohiero> /  VIAF<http://viaf.org/viaf/36099266/> /  Worldcat<http://www.worldcat.org/wcidentities/lccn-n91-100619>
blogging at: I&M 2.0<http://im2punt0.wordpress.com/> / Ref4UU<http://ref4uu.blogspot.com/>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trees say printing is a thing of the past

From: Web technologies in libraries [mailto:WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Stacy Pober
Sent: vrijdag 25 september 2015 22:33
To: WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [WEB4LIB] Non-scholarly sites showing up in Google Scholar

I know there have always been a few citations here and there that were not scholarly, but they usually were in Scholar because some scholarly papers had cited them.  In this case, most of the non-scholarly hits were not cited in other papers.

Someone told me that there are sites that are trying to appear scholarly to get indexed by Google Scholar but that's not the case for most of the hits on the list for my test search.  I don't know how they got indexed in Scholar.

The one book or article that is a complete dead end is a particular mystery.  I thought that Scholar was a subset of the entire Google database but this particular title produces zero hits when searched as a phrase in Google:
[CITATION] Reducing Nightshade Consumption May Improve Arthritic Symptoms
A Johnson

I'm not worried that I will mistake a non-scholarly site for a scholarly one, but I'm not going to recommend Google Scholar to undergraduates if this lack of selectivity becomes common.

Stacy

On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 11:01 AM, John M Hubbard <hubbardj at uwm.edu<mailto:hubbardj at uwm.edu>> wrote:
Hi Stacy, I think it's always been a limitation of Google Scholar that popular items cited in scholarly sources can show up in results:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=pelican+brief

Like not knowing the scope of what exactly is being indexed, it's one of those imperfections that isn't necessarily a deal-breaker, for non-librarians at least.

--
John Hubbard
Web Services and Electronic Resources Coordinator
UWM Libraries Webmaster
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Golda Meir Library W241
(414)229-7429<tel:%28414%29229-7429>

From: Web technologies in libraries [mailto:WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU<mailto:WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU>] On Behalf Of Stacy Pober
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2015 7:50 PM
To: WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU<mailto:WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU>
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Non-scholarly sites showing up in Google Scholar

I was looking at Google Scholar search results and noticed some results that do not normally fit the criteria most people would use for "scholarly publishing".

The search terms were: nightshade arthritis

7 hits of the first 20 hits are questionable:

#3: Childers, Norman Franklin. A Diet to Stop Arthritis: The Nightshades and Ill Health. Horticultural Publications, 1981.  [Not from a scholarly press.Author is a PhD who published in peer-reviewed journals, but this is apparently in the results because it was cited in a scholarly publication.]

#5: Childers, Norman Franklin. Arthritis, a Diet to Stop it: The Nightshades, Aging and Ill Health. Norman F. Childers, 1993. [Self-published. Cited in a scholarly publication.]

#8: Johnson, Anthony. "Reducing Nightshade Consumption May Improve Arthritic Symptoms."
[Oddly, this  only seems to exist as a citation in Google Scholar. There's no source or publisher specified and no link to full text anywhere as far as I can tell.  It doesn't show up in a normal Google search as an exact title match.]

#14: Read, Mark Forums. "Thread: Nightshade Foods." [from the site: anabolicminds.com<http://anabolicminds.com> <http://bit.ly/1izoQUN>  ]

#16: TOP TEN TIPS, "How Deadly Are Nightshades?."  [from the website: 50symptomsgone.com<http://50symptomsgone.com> <http://bit.ly/1izoTzM>  ]

#18: Jackson, Steven. "Foods to avoid with arthritis." (2014). [from the website: global-partnerships.com<http://global-partnerships.com> <  http://bit.ly/1iP6G1Z>]

#20: Windley, Steve. "Dr. Tara Skye Goldin's Newsletter, The Joint Issue Natural Medicine That Gets Results!." [from the website: www.taraskyegoldin.com<http://www.taraskyegoldin.com>   <http://bit.ly/1iP6y2p>  ]

The results are a little better if I use the search terms: solanine arthritis
but I still get a few of the non-scholarly links.

It looks like Google Scholar is including any article that is cited in a scholarly article, including tabloid newspaper articles and some conspiracy websites.  There are some hits in that list  that are not cited by any scholarly source, and I can't figure out why those were included in the results.   I used to recommend Google Scholar to students all the time, and now I'm a little wary of it.

--
Stacy Pober
Information Alchemist
Manhattan College Library
Riverdale, NY 10471
stacy.pober at manhattan.edu<mailto:stacy.pober at manhattan.edu>
============================

To unsubscribe: http://bit.ly/web4lib

Web4Lib Web Site: http://web4lib.org/

2015-09-24

--
Stacy Pober
Information Alchemist
Manhattan College Library
Riverdale, NY 10471
stacy.pober at manhattan.edu<mailto:stacy.pober at manhattan.edu>
============================

To unsubscribe: http://bit.ly/web4lib

Web4Lib Web Site: http://web4lib.org/

2015-09-25

============================

To unsubscribe: http://bit.ly/web4lib

Web4Lib Web Site: http://web4lib.org/

2015-09-25
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.nd.edu/pipermail/web4lib/attachments/20150925/0ff7ba8f/attachment.htm>