Most students never make it past Google. They find a few articles, skim them, and call it research. Top students do something different: they make what's called the Scholar Shift — moving from Google into Google Scholar, where peer-reviewed academic research lives. This is where examiners can immediately see the difference between a C-grade and an A-grade essay.
What Google Is Actually For
Before getting to Scholar, understand what Google is good for in EE research:
Context and Definitions. Use Google to understand your topic at a surface level. Get your bearings before going deep.
Policy Documents and Reports. Government websites, think tanks (IMF, World Bank, McKinsey), and news outlets give you real-world data.
Intro-Level Understanding. Wikipedia, Investopedia, and similar sources are fine for building initial understanding — but never cite them in your essay.
Google is NOT for: academic arguments, causal claims without peer-reviewed citations, or EE-level analysis. If you build your argument on Google alone, your essay will read like a school report, not a research paper.
The Scholar Shift
Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) gives you access to peer-reviewed papers, academic journals, PhD dissertations, and studies by researchers who have spent years studying exactly what you're writing about. Once you cite these, your essay immediately reaches a different level.
Most students don't get to this level of depth. The people grading your paper know this — which means arriving here already puts you ahead.
The Step-by-Step Scholar Method
- Search Narrowly. Not "inflation India" — instead: "monetary policy transmission India inflation." The more specific your search term, the more relevant your results.
- Sort by Relevance First. Don't filter by date immediately. New does not mean good. Influential foundational papers from 10-20 years ago are often more useful than recent ones.
- Open Maximum 3 Papers. Top students do NOT open 20 tabs. They scan the abstract, introduction, and conclusion. If a paper doesn't directly help, discard it.
- Follow the Citations. The best strategy: find one good paper, then look at what IT cites. Those foundational papers are often the most authoritative sources you can use.
What Makes a Source EE-Worthy
| EE-Worthy | Red Flag |
|---|---|
| Has a clear argument or finding | Blog post with no citations |
| Uses data or established theory | News article used as analysis |
| Acknowledges its own limitations | Paper that only describes, never evaluates |
| Can be evaluated, not just summarised | Wikipedia or student-written sources |
| Published in a journal or by an institution | Random website with no author |
How to Note Sources (Not Like Your Dump)
For your final source notes (separate from your Dump), record only three things per source. This makes evaluation effortless when you're writing:
- Core claim (1 sentence — what does this paper argue?)
- Evidence/method (what data or approach did they use?)
- Limitation or bias (what does this paper NOT account for?)
The limitation you note becomes your critical evaluation in the essay. "While Smith (2019) argues X using Y methodology, this approach has limitations because Z." That single sentence pattern is worth marks under Criterion C.
When to Stop Researching
You stop when each of your sub-questions has 2-3 solid sources. Not 10. Not 20. Two or three strong, peer-reviewed, evaluable sources per subtopic is more than enough for a 4,000-word essay.
Key takeaways
- Google for context, Google Scholar for academic arguments — never mix these up
- Search narrowly with specific terminology, not broad topic names
- Open 3 papers max, scan abstract + intro + conclusion, discard the rest
- Follow citations to find the foundational papers everyone references
- Note: core claim, evidence/method, limitation — nothing else