The long historical tradition of essay writing in China likely dates back at least 2,500 years ago, when Confucius identified it as one of the six basic skills of the nobility. Essay writing eventually emerged as one of the most important parts of the imperial examinations to promote government officials in the Sui Dynasty 1,400 years ago.

Although the imperial examinations ended about 100 years ago, academic essay writing continues to be held in high regard. University teachers must publish a certain number of essays to become professors, accountants need to get several essays published in order to become senior accountants, and doctors can improve their status just through a few well written papers on an important topic.

Fortunately, the Internet and search engines have eased the search for useful information. But the academic side of the Internet got a huge boost one week last month when the top three search service providers in China Baidu, Google and Yahoo! simultaneously launched their academic search services.

US firm Google launched the Chinese version of Google Scholar in January in partnership with Beijing-based Wanfang Data and Chongqing-based VIP Information, both of which have millions of articles from Chinese newspapers, magazines, university journals, documents on industry standards and patents, and other information in their databases.

The service is mainly targeted at university researchers, research institutes, and enterprises. It searches for published articles in specific fields or references to specific information in other articles.

Kaifu Lee, president of Google China, says that one of the service's strengths is that researchers always know where an article is published and who has quoted it, so they can judge the importance of this information and determine whether they should read further.

"I hope Google Scholar becomes a ladder to help researchers stand on the shoulders of giants," says Lee.

Luo Siming, an associate professor in dictionary studies at Ningbo University in East China's Zhejiang Province, still remembers travelling to big libraries in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou to research his master thesis five years ago.

"The trips were very valuable, but I doubt if I would do it now, because search engines handle so much information about almost every academic paper in circulation," says Luo.

Two days after the Google Scholar launch, domestic search engine leader Baidu launched its own academic service, which specializes in traditional Chinese philosophy, history, literature, and classical arts. The service, in co-operation with Guoxue.com, a professional Chinese studies website, offers more than 100,000 web pages.

Cai Yongning, an editor with the Xiamen University Journal in the coastal city of Xiamen, in East China's Fujian Province, needs to read hundreds of essays by university teachers from all over China who are eager to have their essays published in his journal.

Cai had to spend hours a day searching databases his journal subscribes to in order to identify plagiarism or copyright infringements. Now Cai simply uses a search engine to determine what has been published as a means of assessing the quality of articles for his journal.

Finally, Yahoo! China followed up by launching its knowledge sharing search service on January 16.

Peter Lu, a Beijing-based Internet analyst, believes the almost simultaneous launches of these academic searches by the top three service providers in China highlights the intense competition on the mainland. A lot of companies have been drawn to the search business, including MSN, Chinese Internet portals Sina and Sohu, and professional search company Zhongsou.

Music searches used to be the most important search engine application in China, but a number of lawsuits against Baidu sounded the alarm to protect musical copyrights.

Lu says that academic searches are likely to emerge as a popular draw for users.

"It is very difficult to find such a big user population who want valuable information and could be willing to pay. Academic searches have all the potential to bring more advertising clients," says Lu.

Researchers could also be loyal, long-term users, which would make advertising on these pages more valuable.

Google Scholar users only see search results. If they want to read an entire article, they are directed to the websites of Wanfang Data or VIP Information to subscribe.

Databases providers, which do not have access to a large number of subscribers, will also benefit from the widespread influence of search engine websites.

"The competition is fierce, so search firms must win with specialized services geared at the needs of users," Lu says.

(China Daily 02/21/2006 page6)