For those of you who recently attended high school or university, you may be familiar with Google’s academic search engine, Google Scholar. Just like its original version, Google Scholar compiles results from keywords picked out of your query, with a focus on academic articles exclusively. The benefits of using a scholastic resource is obvious, as the need to verify the authenticity of claims made in articles found on Google Scholar is drastically lower than when using the regular search engine. There is a plethora of advantages you may not be aware of, though. Typically, these are articles that are published in medical journals, study materials, and government reports. Documents of this nature will aim to discover and inform, so there is a higher chance of gathering data pertinent to your research goal without even having to conduct any of that work yourself. Not only that, but the information gleaned from an article featured on Google Scholar will most likely be peer-reviewed, meaning the scientific community has come together and verified the work as being credible. Lastly, most articles that do answer your research questions will have secondary, but helpful information that can bolster your goals and improve your business practices even more than what you went looking for in the first place.

In our example, you may find that scientists have already identified and published what scents the majority of the population finds calming. We’ll say that’s lavender, and we’ll also say that they found that, while conducting a series of experiments, oil diffusion worked best when trying to induce a calming state. Not only have you discovered which product you’d like to brand as calming, you also found that the most effective form is lavender oil. Of course, this is only an example, but it a very real possibility— you’ve got to look to find out!