Where you search is what you get: Literature mining - Google Scholar versus Web of Science using a data set from a literature search in vegetation science

Question: Is Google Scholar superior in literature search compared to the Web of Science? Location: The Internet. Methods: The maximum number of papers dealing with specific subjects was derived from a published review and compared with Google Scholar and Web of Science search results using GLM and a post-hoc test. Results: Search results acquired through Google Scholar were not significantly different from the maximum number of papers found by manual search, while the Web of Science search delivered significantly less. Conclusion: Researchers should give more prominent recognition to Google Scholar as a search tool, especially when conducting quantative reviews and meta-analysis. We compared the performance of Google Scholar and the Web of Science using a dataset from a quantitative review. Search results acquired through Google Scholar contained significantly more relevant results than those delivered by the Web of Science. Due to its full text search capabilities, Google Scholar should be recognized more as a useful search tool by the scientific community.