Here’s a list of 3 academic search engines for Chrome, which you can use to make it easier to do web searches when looking for information from academic sources. Regular search engines tend to include results from dubious sources, sources which aren’t necessarily that correct, verified by the academic community. When working on a paper for school, and especially when working in college, it’s important to cite trustworthy sources of information. Using academic search engines makes it easy to find only those papers which have been peer reviewed, at least most of the time.
Let’s see how it all works.
Knowledge – All-in-one Internet Search
Knowledge offers much more than just a quick access to academic search engines like Google Scholar and Wolfram Alpha. It also combines a multitude of other websites, like popular web shops ebay, Amazon), app stores, forums, Q&A type of websites (Superuser) and other search engines like Yahoo and Bing.
Search is available from the top right corner of the screen. It’s activated by clicking on the extensions icon. You can select the search engine you want to use from the drop down selector and type in the search term in the input box. Click on the search button will take you to results.
Get Knowledge – All-in-one Internet Search.
Also, have a look at Academic Earth: Free Online Lectures from Top Universities.
Google Scholar Button
Google Scholar Button takes it one step further when it comes to academic search engines for Chrome. It adds a button (hence the app name), to the top right corner of the screen. Click on that button opens up a Google Scholar search inside the drop down window.
You can see the Google Scholar button in action on the image above. It taps directly to Google Scholar, giving you top 3 results from inside the drop down window and an option to see the full list of results by clicking on the “expand” button in the bottom left corner of the drop down window.
Lazy Scholar
Lazy Scholar will help out everyone who needs a quick way to find freely available scientific papers. Paywalls are something that’s been happening more and more as of late. With Lazy Scholar, you’ll be able to perform enhanced Google Scholar searches that focus on free scientific papers, which aren’t behind paywalls.
Lazy Scholar integrates with Google Scholar automatically and it changes results to favor sources that are freely available. Right click on the top right corner extension icon lets you open up settings, where you can tweak various settings to your own needs.
Get Lazy Scholar.
Also, have a look at Get Organized: Free Academic Planner to Organize Studies.
Conclusion
Google Scholar Button is one of the best academic search engines or should I say one of the best academic search engine upgrades for Chrome that I tested. I really like how it makes it easy to search for academic sources without having to open up a new tab, simply by clicking on the top right corner icon. Lazy Scholar is close behind, in second place. Use it when you need to find a source of information that’s free, free academic papers. Give them a try and let me know what you think in the comments down below.
