Google Scholar

For this assignment, we were challenged to look up the same topic we chose for our last assignment in Google Scholar. So, using the same search terms as for assignment #8, I used Google Scholar to find articles about Social Networking. Here is the bibliography that produced:

Title: Social network(ing) sitesrevisiting the story so far: A response to danah boyd &Nicole Ellison
Author(s): Beer, D. D.
Source: JOURNAL OF COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION -ELECTRONIC EDITION- 13 (2):516-529 2008
Times Cited: 53

Title: Homophily in Myspace
Author: Mike Thelwall
Source: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60 (2): 219-231 February 2009
Times cited: 17

Title: The Taste for Privacy: An Analysis of College Student Privacy Settings in an Online Social Network
Author: Kevin Lewis, Jason Kaufman, Nicholas Christakis
Source: Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 14 (1): 79-100 Oct 2008
Times cited: 21

Title: The Faces of Facebookers: Investigating Social Enhancement and Social Compensation Hypotheses; Predicting Facebook™ and Offline Popularity from Sociability and Self-Esteem, and Mapping the Meanings of Popularity with Semantic Networks
Author: Jolene Zywica, James Danowski
Source: Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 14 (1): 1-34 Oct 2008
Times Cited: 17

Title: Functions of Social Networking Services
Author: A. Richter, M. Koch
Source: Proc. 8TH International
Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, Carry-le-rouet, France, Institut d'Etudes Politiques d'Aix-en-Provence, 87-98
Times Cited: 14

Title: Informal Learning and Identity Formation in Online Social Networks
Author: Christine Greenhowa; Beth Robelia
Source: Learning, Media and Technology, 34(2): 119 - 140 June 2009
Times cited: 9

Title: Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences
Author: Bernhard Debatin, Jennette P. Lovejoy
Source: Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 15: 83-108 2009
Times Cited: 10

Title: Youth and Their Virtual Networked Words: Research Findings and Their Implications for School Libraries
Author: Dr. Ross J. Todd
Source: School Libraries Worldwide, 14 (2): 19-34 July 2008
Times cited: 8

Title: Too much of a good thing? The relationship between number of friends and interpersonal impressions on Facebook
Author: Stephanie Tom Tong, Brandon Van Der Heide,Lindsey Langwell, Joseph B. Walther
Source: Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13 (3): 531–549 April 2008
Times Cited: 35

Title: Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use
Author: Craig Ross Emily S. Orra, Jaime M. Arseneaulta, Mary G. Simmeringa, R. Robert Orra,
Source: Computers in Human Behavior, 25 (2): 578-586 March 2009
Times cited: 19


My thoughts on Google Scholar vs. the Kent databases:

To be honest, I didn't feel that there was much of a difference between Google and Kent's searches. Although Google Scholar felt a bit more relaxed as far as searching terms went, they both pretty much returned the same kind of results, in both number and quality (accuracy and relevance.)

I will say that since the assignment depending on the number of citations used for the source, Google Scholar was easier to use in that regard. It listed right below the search result how many times that particular article had been cited. I didn't have to go anywhere else to see how many times the article was cited. It also, wonderfully, gave a link that took you directly to related articles, which I used several times in this assignment. Another plus to Google Scholar was that it also linked to multiple versions of the article right from the results page.

All in all:

• I felt Google was just as trustworthy with its results as the Kent databases
• both systems provided accurate results and I will use them both again
• Google Scholar had a more convenient layout overall, which made linking to other sources easier
• For this particular assignment, which asked for citation numbers, Google wins on convenience, but only for that reason
• I felt only slightly more comfortable with my search terms in Google Scholar, mostly because I knew that, like a regular Google search, it would most likely find something relevant even if it wasn't the best search term. In other words, I was more okay with making mistakes on Scholar and this is probably sort of a learned response to Google in general. I'm just prepared to search again or to have to filter through dud results. Which... really isn't a positive thing for Google, now that I think about it.