When students perform a Google Scholar search, the Research pane will display a list of sources. By hovering over each source’s link, students can see how many other scholars have cited the source (a great way to gauge the quality of the source), see the type of source (PDF, web, etc.), and be taken directly to the source.
If a student finds research they want to use in the source, they can choose the citation format they want (MLA, APA, or Chicago) and, with the click of a button, cite the source as a footnote or insert it directly into their paper. Google Scholar also allows students to save a list of their sources.
Google Scholar will tell you not only how many times an article was cited, but will also generate a list of those publications. Many people are familiar with looking at Google Scholar search results and noting the number of times a particular publication has been cited. This can be a shorthand (and by all means not the ONLY) way of determining an article’s credibility. But what many people don’t realize is that citation metric is hyperlinked: click on that metric and a list of all the publications that cited the article in question will appear. This is a great trick for young researchers (like myself) to gain a quick snapshot of the field.