Which Source to Use for What:
Times cited – Google Scholar will find more citations than any other database, regardless of subject area. This is due to the wider coverage of different types of documents it is searching (such as theses, technical reports, and white papers).
Non-English language publications – Google Scholar will find more of these.
“High-influence” publications – Web of Science Core Collection if you exclude Emerging Sources Citation Index from the list of databases being searched.
Peer-reviewed journals – Dimensions, Scopus, and Web of Science or other discipline specific databases. [GS known to cover a lot of non-reviewed content.]
Trade publications – Scopus or other discipline-specific databases.
Book coverage – Google Scholar as it covers Google Books content along with other freely-accessible online publications. Dimensions also contains wide coverage of edited books, regular books, and book chapters.
Non-journal, non-book coverage – Google Scholar covers more unique types of materials (technical reports, theses and dissertations, etc.). Web of Science and Scopus both have “some” proceedings and academic book series but they are mainly covering journal articles. Dimensions includes clinical trials, datasets and policy documents.
Authors with common names – Scopus and Web of Science can easily help distinguish between similar author names due to author profiles. Dimensions (and other specialized subject databases) offer advanced search filters such as author affiliation. Google Scholar is only be able to provide if the author has created a GS profile.
