Another way we can find scholarly articles is using Google Scholar. We search it the same way we do Google, but instead of looking for websites, Google Scholar searches for academic resources such as electronic books, scholarly articles, and reports.

Advantage of using Google Scholar:

We're already familiar with how to search Google.
We don't need to log in to a specific library's databases to search it.

Disadvantages of using Google Scholar:

We'll find electronic books and reports too, so we'll still need to evaluate each source we locate to make sure it's a scholarly article.
Not everything we find there is available for free. We might find a perfect article, but when we try to access it, we're told we have to pay $30 or $40 for it. We shouldn't do this because there is a very good chance that the Highline College Library already has the article.
- And if it doesn't, the library provides a service called interlibrary loan (ILL), which allows us to request a free copy of the article, which will be sent to us by email, often within a few days. The Highline College Librarians can also help with questions about finding an article and using the ILL service.

Google Scholar Example

Below are the results from a search of the topic "for profit prisons" in Google Scholar from summer 2019.

In this particular example:

Clicking on the book doesn't lead to the book. Instead, you can see if any libraries in your area have the book. [The Highline College Library doesn't have this book.]
The second link (starting with "Globalization") is a broken link.
The third article (starting with "Private prisons") requires $43 to access it. [The HC Library could get this article for free through ILL.]
The fourth article (starting with "Prisons, the profit") is available through one of Highline College's library databases, but it would be more difficult to access from Google Scholar when off campus because you have to be signed into the library databases to access it.
The fifth article (starting with "Should society") is available for free online by clicking the link.

Google Scholar is definitely an option to be aware of, but if we do a search in Highline College Library's One Search tool for: "private prisons" or "for profit prisons," we find over 7,000 results, all of which we have access to immediately. Therefore, to save ourselves time, we might want to begin with the library databases, and then search Google Scholar if we need additional resources.

Google Scholar results page