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How to Use Google Scholar
If you’ve got research to do, you can streamline your process by turning to Google Scholar. Consider the Google Scholar search engine to be your best option for finding the sources you need for your scholarly research.
What is Google Scholar?
Google Scholar is a research search engine that confines its searches to scholarly materials such as online books, reports and articles. Search returns are listed by their web address, by the entity that cites them, by the information cited by them and other sources that are linked to them. With a broad search base, Google Scholar returns sources reliably.
Who Needs Google Scholar?
Students and professionals who are looking for credible and reliable sources will benefit from using Google Scholar. This academic search engine sets itself apart from the standard Google search engine because it searches the same resources that students would search when they use a university database or catalog system.
If you’re conducting research and you need a broad search to find information published in scholarly literature, Google Scholar will fit your needs. With one search, you can access information from many different sources, including theses, books, journal articles, abstracts and even judicial opinions.
Features of Google Scholar
Google Scholar accesses and searches all scholarly literature. With your search terms entered into the Google Scholar search engine, you can find specific authors, publications, citations and all related works. You’ll often be able to find full documents with Google Scholar. These search capabilities make it possible to remain current with all research updates.
You can also create a public author profile. This allows you to receive notifications if other people cite your work.
To search with Google Scholar, open https://scholar.google.com. Click menu in the top left corner and choose “settings.” Click “library links,” and enter the library you wish to search in the search box. Click “search” and choose your desired library from the list of results. Google allows you to choose up to five libraries.
Enter your desired keywords into the search box and review the returned results. Click through to view the sources to find the information you need.
Tips for Getting the Most out of Google Scholar
Use Advanced Scholar Search for more refined search parameters. It allows you to search according to a date range, publication or author.
When you reach sources that charge access fees, consult your university’s library. The school may have a subscription to the publication so you can avoid paying the fee.
Check for full documents in search returns. You might see an HTML or PDF link following an article title. Click these links to access a full document that’s publicly available.
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- How Do I...
- Search for Articles with Google Scholar
- Adding a Library Printer to Your Laptop
The Catholic University library catalog and many of the article databases Catholic University subscribes to are accessible through Google Scholar .
On-campus access
Visit https://scholar.google.com and begin searching. You're good to go!
Off-campus access
If you are off campus you will need to set the preferences so that Google will show you the resources that Catholic University provides.
- Go to https://scholar.google.com
- Look at the left corner menu icon and click Settings from the menu.
- Click on Library Links from the navbar along the side of the page.
- Enter CUA in the text field next to Library Links then click on the Search button.
- Check the box in the front of our university name, then click Save in the lower right corner.
Searching with Google Scholar
Within Google Scholar you may conduct searches by keyword, author and article title. There is also an advanced search with more options. In the result list, when you see [email protected] , that means we have access to the electronic copy for the article. Click on [email protected] , the next page will show that item in our SearchBox with a link to the full text.
Google Scholar is good for conducting simple searches across a broad number of databases. For complex or in depth searching we recommend that you search individual subject databases .
Google Scholar™ is a trademark of Google Inc.

Research Basics: Find Articles Using Google Scholar
- Understanding the Assignment
- Choosing a Research Topic
- Refining a Research Topic
- Developing a Research Question
- Deciding What Types of Sources You Will Need
- Types of Sources
- Search Techniques
- Find Books & eBooks
- Choose a Database / Find Articles
- Find Articles Using the EBSCO Articles tab
- Find Journals
- Find Websites using Google
- Find Articles Using Google Scholar
- Find Government Documents
- Find Statistics
- Interlibrary Loan
- How to evaluate your sources
- Primary vs. Secondary Sources
- Popular vs. Scholary
- Wheel of Sources
- Incorporate Sources into Your Research Paper
- Paraphrasing
- Voice Markers
- Using Source Material to Develop/Support an Argument
- Reasons to Cite Your Sources
- Citation & Style Guides
- Learning Checks
- Open Access Educational Resources
- Research Help
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Connect Google Scholar to the BenU Library's Collection
1. starting in google scholar, choose settings..

2. Choose Library Links. Search “Benedictine” and check the boxes. Search "Worldcat" and check the box. Click Save.

You're done! Now when you search in Google Scholar, your results page will include BenU Library links along the right.

Search Google Scholar
Google Scholar promotes itself as a resource that provides one-stop shopping for scholarly literature. It searches across many disciplines and covers a wide variety of resources, including journal articles, theses, books, abstracts, and more. Although Google Scholar is aimed at the academic community, it uses a very broad definition of "scholarly literature."
It is important to realize that not everything in Google Scholar is peer reviewed.
Try a search:

Tutorial: Using Google Scholar
Remember to evaluate websites for reliability and accuracy before you use them in your research assignments.
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- Library databases
- Library website
- Walden University
- Academic Guides
- Full-Text Articles
- Articles at Google Scholar
Full-Text Articles: Articles at Google Scholar
- Articles at Walden
- Find an Exact Article
Google Scholar
Find an article at google scholar, connect google scholar to the walden library.
- Buy an Article
- Local Libraries (WorldCat)
- Main Full Text Guide
Find scholarly content on the web with Google Scholar. It's useful for conducting comprehensive literature reviews beyond Walden Library.
Learn more from this guide:
- Google Scholar by Jon Allinder Last Updated Dec 9, 2022 17188 views this year
If Walden doesn't have an article you want, check Google Scholar. You may find a free copy online.

If there is no link on the right:
- Click the article title. Though rare, you may get it free from the publisher. You might also see how much it costs if you're interested in buying it.
- Try searching regular Google .
- Buy the article.
- Use the Document Delivery Service . Remember, it can take 7-10 business days to get an article from DDS.
Option 1: Search using Google Scholar pre-connected to the Walden Library
Access Google Scholar directly through the Library's website to use a pre-connected version .
Option 2: Manually connect Google Scholar to Walden Library
Follow these steps to manually link Google Scholar to the Walden Library collection:
- Go to Google Scholar (scholar.google.com).

- In the search box, type in Walden and click the Search button.

- Click Save. Google Scholar will remember this setting until you clear your browser cookies . Now when you search Google Scholar, you will see Find @ Walden links to the right of articles available in the Library.

- When you click on Find @ Walden you will be asked to login with your Walden username and password.
- You may see a list of databases that contain the article; you will need to click on one of these database links to be taken to the article.
- Pay attention to the years listed by the database links, as databases may have different publication years available. Click on the database you want to try and it should take you to the article.
- Previous Page: Find an Exact Article
- Next Page: Buy an Article
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- Free Research Papers, Journals and Scientific Articles from Google Scholar
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- 04 Mar 2020
How to Search and Download Research Papers, Journals and Scientific Articles from Google Scholar for Free
You might be very familiar with using Google Scholar to find research papers, journals or scientific articles, but sometimes many of the articles are not freely accessible. This article explains how to access those seemingly not accessible research paper, journals or scientific articles for free. If you are not really familiar with using Google scholar this article will also introduce the basics as well. Here are the steps to help you get started.
Step 1: Navigate to the URL https://scholar.google.com/

Step 2: Type the sentence or keyword you want to find research papers, journals or scientific articles.
Note that it is important to keep your source of information as recent as possible. As a rule of thumb, 90% of your journal or research paper should be within 5 years; follow step 3 to narrow down the years. Select the year you want. It is better to keep the result as recent as possible so you can start by narrowing down your search to 2020 by pressing ‘Since 2020’ as shown below:

if you don’t find enough research papers, journals or scientific articles to use, then you can select ‘ Since 2019’ for 1-year-old journals or ‘Since 2016’ for 5-years-old journals as seen below:

However, if you want research papers, journals or scientific articles that are older than 5 years as well then select ‘Any time’ as shown below:

Step 4: Right-click and open the links for the research papers, journals or scientific articles that have direct access PDF or Word document as seen in the screenshot below:

Steps 5: For the journals that do not have links as seen in the screenshot below, copy the name or the URL or the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and search it in the Sci-Hub website. 99% of the time you will find these research papers, journals or scientific articles in PDF format; Sci-Hub has millions of free journals and research papers and you will most likely find what you need here. The website is legal even though it has been sued several times by companies like Elsevier. Sci-Hub works by taking institutional login credentials donated from students, researchers, and other academics to access the research papers, journals or scientific articles you are looking for and then download a copy of it to store it on their own server.

For example, the full access for the journal ‘A Maturity model for hospital information systems’ is not available through Google scholar, therefore we can search for the name of the journal on the sci.hub.tw website as shown below:
https://sci.hubg.org/

You can click on open to access the journal. You can also download the journal by clicking on the right top download icon as shown below:

Final Thoughts
That’s it, I hope you found this very easy if you have any problem with any of the steps stated above, feel free to drop a comment and I will try as much as possible to reply. Thanks for reading and enjoy your research.
See Also: Are Paraphrasing Tools Really Worth It? | A Quick Guide To IEEE Referencing In Microsoft Word | How to Paraphrase | A Quick and Complete Guide to Harvard Referencing
- Final year project
- Dissertation
- Research paper
- Academic writing
- Writing tools
- Google scholar
- Scientific articles

prednisonedot Jan 10, 2023
I’m not sure where you’re getting your info, but good topic.
lasixToort Dec 06, 2022
I am not sure where you’re getting your information, but good topic. I needs to spend some time learning more or understanding more. Thanks for wonderful info I was looking for this information for my mission.
Arega Amdie Dec 03, 2022
I want to collect my research articles and journals in this data base. please help me!... Arega Amdie 0910407817
Ida Nuriya Fatmawati Jun 15, 2022
Nice website and thanks for information, I hope there will be many websites like this
Chioma Joy May 05, 2022
Thanks, very interesting.
Alfrieta olayo Mar 02, 2022
Thank you. I am very new to using google scholar. This helped me a lot.
Dr.s. Amirthavalli Jul 28, 2021
My area of specialisation is Women Studies.
Henry Ebugosi May 01, 2021
Very enlightening!
Abubakar Idris Mar 10, 2021
Very interesting. Thanks
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18 Google Scholar tips all students should know
Dec 13, 2022
Think of this guide as your personal research assistant.

“It’s hard to pick your favorite kid,” Anurag Acharya says when I ask him to talk about a favorite Google Scholar feature he’s worked on. “I work on product, engineering, operations, partnerships,” he says. He’s been doing it for 18 years, which as of this month, happens to be how long Google Scholar has been around.
Google Scholar is also one of Google’s longest-running services. The comprehensive database of research papers, legal cases and other scholarly publications was the fourth Search service Google launched, Anurag says. In honor of this very important tool’s 18th anniversary, I asked Anurag to share 18 things you can do in Google Scholar that you might have missed.
1. Copy article citations in the style of your choice.
With a simple click of the cite button (which sits below an article entry), Google Scholar will give you a ready-to-use citation for the article in five styles, including APA, MLA and Chicago. You can select and copy the one you prefer.
2. Dig deeper with related searches.
Google Scholar’s related searches can help you pinpoint your research; you’ll see them show up on a page in between article results. Anurag describes it like this: You start with a big topic — like “cancer” — and follow up with a related search like “lung cancer” or “colon cancer” to explore specific kinds of cancer.

Related searches can help you find what you’re looking for.
3. And don’t miss the related articles.
This is another great way to find more papers similar to one you found helpful — you can find this link right below an entry.

4. Read the papers you find.
Scholarly articles have long been available only by subscription. To keep you from having to log in every time you see a paper you’re interested in, Scholar works with libraries and publishers worldwide to integrate their subscriptions directly into its search results. Look for a link marked [PDF] or [HTML]. This also includes preprints and other free-to-read versions of papers.
5. Access Google Scholar tools from anywhere on the web with the Scholar Button browser extension.
The Scholar Button browser extension is sort of like a mini version of Scholar that can move around the web with you. If you’re searching for something, hitting the extension icon will show you studies about that topic, and if you’re reading a study, you can hit that same button to find a version you read, create a citation or to save it to your Scholar library.

Install the Scholar Button Chrome browser extension to access Google Scholar from anywhere on the web.
6. Learn more about authors through Scholar profiles.
There are many times when you’ll want to know more about the researchers behind the ideas you’re looking into. You can do this by clicking on an author’s name when it’s hyperlinked in a search result. You’ll find all of their work as well as co-authors, articles they’re cited in and so on. You can also follow authors from their Scholar profile to get email updates about their work, or about when and where their work is cited.
7. Easily find topic experts.
One last thing about author profiles: If there are topics listed below an author’s name on their profile, you can click on these areas of expertise and you’ll see a page of more authors who are researching and publishing on these topics, too.
8. Search for court opinions with the “Case law” button.
Scholar is the largest free database of U.S. court opinions. When you search for something using Google Scholar, you can select the “Case law” button below the search box to see legal cases your keywords are referenced in. You can read the opinions and a summary of what they established.
9. See how those court opinions have been cited.
If you want to better understand the impact of a particular piece of case law, you can select “How Cited,” which is below an entry, to see how and where the document has been cited. For example, here is the How Cited page for Marbury v. Madison , a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that established that courts can strike down unconstitutional laws or statutes.
10. Understand how a legal opinion depends on another.
When you’re looking at how case laws are cited within Google Scholar, click on “Cited by” and check out the horizontal bars next to the different results. They indicate how relevant the cited opinion is in the court decision it’s cited within. You will see zero, one, two or three bars before each result. Those bars indicate the extent to which the new opinion depends on and refers to the cited case.

In the Cited by page for New York Times Company v. Sullivan, court cases with three bars next to their name heavily reference the original case. One bar indicates less reliance.
11. Sign up for Google Scholar alerts.
Want to stay up to date on a specific topic? Create an alert for a Google Scholar search for your topics and you’ll get email updates similar to Google Search alerts. Another way to keep up with research in your area is to follow new articles by leading researchers. Go to their profiles and click “Follow.” If you’re a junior grad student, you may consider following articles related to your advisor’s research topics, for instance.
12. Save interesting articles to your library.
It’s easy to go down fascinating rabbit hole after rabbit hole in Google Scholar. Don’t lose track of your research and use the save option that pops up under search results so articles will be in your library for later reading.
13. Keep your library organized with labels.
Labels aren’t only for Gmail! You can create labels within your Google Scholar library so you can keep your research organized. Click on “My library,” and then the “Manage labels…” option to create a new label.
14. If you’re a researcher, share your research with all your colleagues.
Many research funding agencies around the world now mandate that funded articles should become publicly free to read within a year of publication — or sooner. Scholar profiles list such articles to help researchers keep track of them and open up access to ones that are still locked down. That means you can immediately see what is currently available from researchers you’re interested in and how many of their papers will soon be publicly free to read.
15. Look through Scholar’s annual top publications and papers.
Every year, Google Scholar releases the top publications based on the most-cited papers. That list (available in 11 languages) will also take you to each publication’s top papers — this takes into account the “h index,” which measures how much impact an article has had. It’s an excellent place to start a research journey as well as get an idea about the ideas and discoveries researchers are currently focused on.
16. Get even more specific with Advanced Search.
Click on the hamburger icon on the upper left-hand corner and select Advanced Search to fine-tune your queries. For example, articles with exact words or a particular phrase in the title or articles from a particular journal and so on.
17. Find extra help on Google Scholar’s help page.
It might sound obvious, but there’s a wealth of useful information to be found here — like how often the database is updated, tips on formatting searches and how you can use your library subscriptions when you’re off-campus (looking at you, college students!). Oh, and you’ll even learn the origin of that quote on Google Scholar’s home page.

18. Keep up with Google Scholar news.
Don’t forget to check out the Google Scholar blog for updates on new features and tips for using this tool even better.
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Research and Writing Guides
Writing a paper? Don't get lost.
Google Scholar: the ultimate guide

What is Google Scholar?
Google Scholar (GS) is a free academic search engine that can be thought of as the academic version of Google. Rather than searching all of the indexed information on the web, it searches repositories of publishers, universities or scholarly websites.
This is generally a smaller subset of the pool that Google searches. It's all done automatically, but still most of the results of a search tend to be reliable scholarly sources. However, Google is also less careful in what it includes in search results than are more curated subscription based, academic databases such as Scopus and Web of Science , so it is worth making your own assessment of the credibility of the resources linked through Google Scholar.

Why is it better than "normal" Google for finding research papers?
We all use Google for our daily internet searches, so why should we switch to Google Scholar?
One advantage of using Google Scholar is that the interface is comforting and familiar to anyone who uses Google. This lowers the learning curve of finding scholarly information . There are a number of useful differences from a regular Google search, such as
- the option to copy a formatted citation in different styles including MLA and APA
- export bibliographic data (BibTeX, RIS) to use with reference management software
- links that let you explore which other works have cited the listed work
- links that let you easily find full text versions of the article
Although it is free to search in Google Scholar, most of the content is not freely available, but Google does its best to find copies of restricted articles in public repositories which often contain earlier drafts (preprints). If you are at an academic or research institution, you can also set up a library connection to highlight items which are available through your institution’s subscriptions.
The Google Scholar search results page
Since searching in Google Scholar is as straightforward as searching in Google, it's best to jump right in and give it a try.

The search result page is, however, different and it is worth being familiar with the different pieces of information that are shown. Let's have a look at the results for the search term "machine learning”.
### The first two lines: core bibliographic information

The first two lines of each result provide the title of the document (e.g. of an article, book, chapter, or report). The second line provides the bibliographic information about the document, in order: the author(s), the journal or book it appears in, the year of publication, and the publisher. Clicking on the title link will bring you to the publisher’s page where you may be able to access more information about the document including the abstract, and options to download the PDF of the document.
### Quick full text-access options

To the far right of the entry are more direct options for obtaining the full text of the document. In this example, Google has also located a publicly available PDF of the document hosted at umich.edu . Note, that it's not guaranteed that it is the version of the article that was finally published in the journal.
### The bottom line: "Cited by" count and other useful links

Below the text snippet/abstract you can find a number of useful links. The first of these is the Cited by link will show other articles that have cited this resource. That is a super useful feature that can help you in many ways. First, it is a good way to track the more recent research that has referenced this article, and second the fact that other researches cited this document lends greater credibility to it. But be aware that there is a lag in publication type. Therefore, an article published in 2017 will not have an extensive number of cited by results. It takes a minimum of 6 months for most articles to get published, so even if an article was using the source, the more recent article has not been published yet.
The Versions link will display other versions of the article or other databases where the article may be found, some of which may offer free access to the article.
Clicking on the quotation mark icon will display a popup with commonly used citation formats such as MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard, and Vancouver that may be copy and pasted. Note, however, that the Google Scholar citation data is sometimes incomplete and so it is often a good idea to check this data at the source - i.e. by following the title link to the publishers' website. The "cite" popup also includes links for exporting the citation data as BibTeX or RIS files that any major reference manager can import.

Pro tips for your literature search
Although Google Scholar limits each search to a maximum of 1,000 results , it's still too much to explore, and you need an effective way of locating the relevant articles. We have put together a list of pro tips that will help you save time and search more effectively:
- Google Scholar searches are not case sensitive . That means a search for "Machine Learning" will produce the same results as a search for "machine learning".
- Use keywords instead of full sentences . Let's say your research topic is about self driving cars. For a regular Google search we might enter something like " what is the current state of the technology used for self driving cars ". In Google Scholar you will see less than ideal results for this query . The trick is to build a list of keywords and perform searches for them like self-driving cars, autonomous vehicles, or driverless cars. Google Scholar will assist you on that: if you start typing in the search field you will see related queries suggested by Scholar!
- Use quotes to search for an exact match . If you put your search phrase into quotes you can search for exact matches of that phrase in the title and the body text of the document. Without quotes, Google Scholar will treat each word separately. This means that if you search national parks , the words will not necessarily appear together. Grouped words and exact phrases should be enclosed in quotation marks.
- Add the year to the search phrase to get articles published in a particular year . A search using e.g. self-driving cars 2015 , will return articles or books published in 2015.
- Use the side bar controls to adjust your search result . Using the options in the left hand panel you can further restrict the search results by limiting the years covered by the search, the inclusion or exclude of patents, and you can sort the results by relevance or by date.
- AND requires both of the words or phrases on either side to be somewhere in the record.
- NOT can be placed in front of a word or phrases to exclude results which include them.
- OR will give equal weight to results which match just one of the words or phrases on either side.
In case you got overwhelmed by those many options, we have put together some illustrative examples below:
The advanced search interface
You can gain even more fine-grained control over your search by using the advanced search feature.
If you are in the exploration stage of information seeking, then advanced search could prematurely limit the information you are seeing, but if you are familiar with the results that are returned, then advanced search tools can give you additional controls over the search to help you narrow in on more relevant results. This feature is available by clicking on the hamburger menu in the upper left and selecting the "Advanced search" menu item.

The fields are fairly self-explanatory. This advanced search depicted above, for example, would results in articles or book titles published between 1990 and 2000 which include the words dinosaur, fossils and devonian but do not include the phrase “United States” anywhere in the title or text (if available) of the search result.
Customizing search preferences and options
Adjusting the Google Scholar settings is not necessary for getting good results but offers some additional customization, including the ability to enable the above-mentioned library integrations. The settings menu is found in the hamburger menu located in the top left of the Google Scholar page. The settings are divided into five sections:
- Collections to search - by default Google scholar searches articles and includes patents, but this default can be changed here if you are not interested in patents or if you wish to often search case law instead.
- Bibliographic manager - if you are using an academic reference manager other than Paperpile, you can enable the export of the relevant citation data format via the “Bibliography manager” subsection. The available options are BibTex (for Latex editors), EndNote (for EndNote), RefMan (for RefMan, Zotero, and Mendeley, among other), and RefWorks.
- Languages - If you wish for results to return only articles written in a specific subset of languages, you can define that here.
- Library links - As noted, Google Scholar allows you to get the Full Text of articles through your institution’s subscriptions - where available. Search for and add your institution(s) here to have the relevant link included in your search results.
- Button - The Scholar Button is a Chrome extension which add a dropdown search box to your toolbar - allowing you to search Google Scholar from any website. Moreover, if you have any text selected on the page and then click the button it will display results from a search on those words when clicked.
Use the "My library" feature to bookmark articles you want to read later on
When signed in, Google Scholar adds some simple tools for keeping track of and organizing the articles you find. These can be useful if you are not using a full academic reference manager.
All the search results include a “save” button at the end of the bottom row of links, clicking this will add it to your "My Library".
To help you provide some structure, you can create and apply labels to the items in your library. Appended labels will appear at the end of the article titles. For example, the following article has been assigned a “RNA” label:

Within your Google Scholar library, you can also edit the metadata associated with titles. This will often be necessary as Google Scholar citation data is often faulty.
The scope and limitations of Google Scholar
There is no official statement about how big the Scholar search index is, but unofficial estimates are in the range of about 160 millions , and it is supposed to continue to grow by several millions each year. Yet, Google Scholar does not return all resources that you may get in search at you local library catalog. For example, a library database could return podcasts, videos, articles, statistics, or special collections. For now, Google Scholar has only the following publication types:
- Journal articles: articles published in journals. It's a mixture of articles from peer reviewed journals, predatory journals and pre-print archives.
- Books: Links to the Google limited version of the text, when possible.
- Book chapters: Chapters within a book, sometimes they are also electronically available.
- Book reviews: Reviews of books, but it is not always apparent that it is a review from the search result.
- Conference proceedings:- Papers written as part of a conference, typically used as part of presentation at the conference.
- Court opinions
- Patents: Google Scholar only searches patents if the option is selected in the search settings described above.
The information in Google Scholar is not cataloged by professionals. The quality of metadata will depend heavily on the source that Google Scholar is pulling the information from. This is a much different process to how information is collected and indexed in scholarly databases such as Scopus or Web of Science.
A brief history of Google Scholar
The key inventor behind Google Scholar is Anurag Acharya , who has been on the Google Scholar Team since it was released back in 2004. Check out this piece in WIRED for the whole background story. Here is a brief timeline of the updates that happened since then:
- June 2010: Google Scholar Alerts was launched
- November 2011: Google Scholar Citations was launched
- April 2012: Google Scholar M etrics are released for the first time
- May 2012: complete overhaul of the Google Scholar interface
- October 2012: the cite feature was introduced and allows to fetch a MLA, APA or Chicago citation of an article
- November 2013: Google Scholar Library is released which allows users to save articles found in Google Scholar to a personal library
- June 2016: query suggestions like we know them from regular Google searches are now also available in Google Scholar
- August 2016: ability to add labels to articles stored in a user's personal Google Scholar library
- September 2017: redesign of the Google Scholar results page
- March 2018: improved experience for mobile phones
- August 2018: 2018 Scholar Metrics released
If you want to dig deeper then take a look at the official Google Scholar Blog .
Alternatives to Google Scholar
Google Scholar is by far the most frequently used academic search engine , but it is not the only one. There is Microsoft Academic which after its relaunch in 2015 seems to be the closest competitor. The new kid on the block is Semantic Scholar developed by the non-profit Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. It's currently corpus consists of about 40 million citations in computer.
Country specific Google Scholar editions
- scholar.google.fr : Sur les épaules d'un géant
- scholar.google.es (Google Académico): A hombros de gigantes
- scholar.google.pt (Google Académico): Sobre os ombros de gigantes
- scholar.google.de : Auf den Schultern von Riesen
Frequently Asked Questions about Google Scholar
No. Google Scholar is a bibliographic search engine rather than a bibliographic database. In order to qualify as a database Google Scholar would need to have stable identifiers for its records, and make sure that no records will be removed.
No. Google Scholar is an academic search engine, but the records found in Google Scholar are scholarly sources.
No. Google Scholar collects research papers from all over the web also including grey literature and non-peer reviewed papers and reports.
Google Scholar does not provide any full text content itself, but links to the full text article on the publisher page, which can either be open access or paywalled content. Google Scholar, however, tries to provide links to free versions of the article e.g. on institutional repositories if possible.
The asiest way to access Google scholar is by using The Google Scholar Button. This is a browser extension that allows you easily access Google Scholar from any web page. You can install it from the Chrome Webstore .
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- Creating a Google Account
Search Google Scholar
Introduction to google scholar.
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Sync Google Scholar to the Library
Install google scholar button.
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Additional Resources
- Google Scholar: Every Researcher's Go-To Guide
- Google Scholar: The Ultimate Guide
- Google Scholar Search Help
Search Google Scholar for journal articles, books, legal cases, grey literature, and other kinds of scholarly documents!

About Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. It provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts, and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities, and other websites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.
Features of Google Scholar
- Search scholarly literature from one convenient place
- Explore related works, citations, authors, and publications
- Locate the complete document through your library or on the web
- Keep up with recent developments in any area of research
- Check who's citing your publications, create a public author profile
Search Results and Document Ranking in Google Scholar
Google Scholar aims to rank documents the way researchers do, weighing the full text of each document, where it was published, who it was written by, as well as how often and how recently it has been cited in other scholarly literature.
Source: About Google Scholar
Why use Google Scholar?
Google Scholar can be a helpful tool when conducting research on your topic. As a scholarly search engine, it can lead you to resources that you may not have otherwise considered.
Advantages of Using Google Scholar
- Expand your search to resources not indexed in databases within the Library.
- Use natural language to search for relevant resources on your topic.
- Identify resources, such as books, journals, and articles, as well as authors in your field of interest.
- Identify highly-cited literature.
- Integrates with the Library. See the boxes below Extend your Search to Google Scholar from Roadrunner and Sync Google Scholar to the Library .
Disadvantages of Using Google Scholar
- Access to a resource in full-text may not be available. When searching Google Scholar, you may hit a paywall that requests the purchase of the resource. Do not pay for a resource! ALWAYS consult with the Library if you require access to a particular resource. There are alternatives, such as interlibrary loan , to gain access free of charge.
- Filters to narrow search results are limited. Sorting by discipline is unavailable, and there is no limiter to strictly search scholarly, peer-reviewed journals.
- Use caution when accessing resources through Google Scholar. The tool uses an algorithm to determine what scholarly-like materials should be included in search results. It is important to evaluate each result to ensure that content is produced by a scholarly and reputable source.
- Advanced Search
- Access to Articles
- Cited by & Related Articles Links
- Search Author Profiles
- Search Case Law
- Search Filters
The creation of a profile in Google Scholar provides a simple way for authors to keep track of citations to their own published articles. You can check who is citing your publications, graph citations over time, and compute several citation metrics. You can also make your profile public, so that it may appear in Google Scholar results when people search for your name, e.g., Richard Feynman .
NOTE : This feature is only available if you're signed into your Google Account . If you don't have an account and would like to create one, click here .

Google Scholar library is your personal collection of articles. You can save articles right off the search page, organize them by topic, and use the power of Scholar search to quickly find just the one you want - at any time and from anywhere. You decide what goes into your library.
NOTE : This feature is only available if you're signed in to your Google Account . If you don't have an account and would like to create one, click here .
To see your saved articles, sign in and click My library using the Menu options in Google Scholar.
Search Alerts
You do not need a Google Account in order to create search alerts and citation alerts. You can enter any email address of your choice. If the email address isn't a Google account or doesn't match your Google account, then Google will email you a verification link, which you'll need to click in order to start receiving alerts. To create a search alert, search for the topic of interest, and click the envelope icon in the sidebar of the search results page, as shown below. Enter your email address, and click Create alert. Google Scholar will then periodically email you newly published papers that match your search criteria. There's a link to cancel the alert at the bottom of every notification email.

Citation Alerts
To create a Google Scholar citation alert, search for the title of your article and then click on the Cited by link, as shown below. Next, click on the envelope icon in the left sidebar of the search results page. Enter your email address, and click Create alert.

Google Scholar Metrics
Google Scholar Metrics provide an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. Scholar Metrics summarize recent citations to many publications to help authors as they consider where to publish their new research.
To get started, you can browse the top 100 publications in several languages , ordered by their five-year h-index and h-median metrics.

You can also view a list of highly cited articles for a particular publication by clicking on the h5-index:

A list of the highly cited articles from that publication will be displayed:
For more information about Google Scholar Metrics, click here .
Google Scholar Advanced Search
Use the Advanced Search to locate resources with a specific phrase, by a particular author, or published in a specific journal, for example.
Access to articles
For each Scholar search result, a version of the article that you can read may be provided. Access links cover a wide variety of ways in which articles may be available to you - articles that the library subscribes to ( see this link for more information ), open access articles, free-to-read articles from publishers, preprints, articles in repositories, etc. These access links are labelled [PDF] or [HTML] and appear to the right of the search result. If you have connected Google Scholar to the Library, you will see the Full Text @ NU link displayed.

During the course of your search, you may find resources through Google Scholar that require subscription access or payment. Do not pay for a resource! ALWAYS consult with the Library if you require access to a particular resource. There are alternatives, such as interlibrary loan , to gain access free of charge.
Cited by and Related Articles Links
Another resourceful method for uncovering similar resources is to take a look at the citing articles, or the articles which cited your original article. This can be an effective method particularly when you are looking for the latest research on your topic. You will be moving forward in time given that the citing articles are building off of the research established in your original article.
Select the Cited by link under a Google Scholar search result to see newer sources of information that have cited the original resource:

You can also leverage Google Scholar's algorithm for finding resources related to a particular citation by clicking on the Related articles link underneath the search result:

Cite Feature & Exporting to RefWorks
You can click on the quotation marks underneath a search result to review the citation format of a resource.

A new window will display various citation output styles, including APA. You can also export the citation information to RefWorks using the link provided in the window.

NOTE: It is extremely important to check the article citation for proper APA Style, as database citation tools are subject to error. The Academic Success Center provides access to Academic Writer , which provides over 150 sample references, as well as nearly 10 sample papers. It also incorporates all of the references and other content from the Publication Manual.
Create a Custom Link to Import References to RefWorks
You can create a custom link to Import into RefWorks that appears underneath each search result. To add this custom link, use the following steps:
NOTE: This setting works with your browser's cookies and cache. If you clear your cookies and cache, then you will need to follow these steps to add the custom link.
Search Author Profiles in Google Scholar
Discover prominent researchers in your field of focus and review lists of published works by searching Author Profiles in Google Scholar.
Use the methods below to search and browse author profiles.
Access Author Profiles from a General Google Scholar Search
2. Browse a list of related author profiles based on your initial search query.
Click Linked Author in a Search Result
If an author has a Google Scholar profile available, it will be hyperlinked within a search result.

Click on the author's name to be redirected to the author profile page.
Follow an Author
You can follow an author in Google Scholar to track and receive alerts on new articles, new citations, and related research.
Click on the Follow icon in the author's profile and mark the options to receive updates on new articles by this author, new citations to this author, or new articles related to this author's research.

Search Case Law in Google Scholar
Google Scholar allows you to search and read published opinions of U.S. state appellate and supreme court cases since 1950, U.S. federal district, appellate, tax, and bankruptcy courts since 1923, and U.S. Supreme Court cases since 1791. In addition, it includes citations for cases cited by indexed opinions or journal articles, which allows you to find influential cases (usually older or international) that are not yet online or publicly available.
From the main Google Scholar search page, select the radio button for Case law underneath the main search bar. Enter a case citation or case name in the search box and click Search. You may also conduct keyword searches of the full text of case opinions by entering your search terms. Limit your search to federal courts or to specific state courts by clicking on Select courts .

Search Filters in Google Scholar
Extend your Search to Google Scholar from Roadrunner
Roadrunner Search includes Extend Your Search buttons to link you to additional sources of information by transferring your keywords and search phrases to other research databases and tools.
These buttons are located on the far right of the Roadrunner Search page and allow you to replicate your search in Google Scholar, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global, and Statista at the click of a button.

- Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature.
- ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global is the official dissertations repository for the Library of Congress offering full-text access to over 2.1 million dissertations and representing more than 3,100 contributing institutions from across the globe. Filter results by institution to view Northcentral University dissertations.
- Statista provides access to statistical data for over 60,000 diverse topics categorized into over 20 market sectors.
Please note that more complex searches may not translate seamlessly when using these widgets, so you may need to modify your search when working in these alternative research databases and tools.
Connect Google Scholar to the Library
If you regularly use Google Scholar to search for research materials and would like to connect Google Scholar to the Library to check for full text in Library databases, please follow the directions below:
NOTE: If a search result in Google Scholar does not display an open access PDF or HTML option or a link to find the Full Text @ NU, consider placing an Interlibrary Loan request for the resource.
What is Google Scholar Button?
Google Scholar Button is a browser plugin that provides easy access to Google Scholar from any webpage. You can use it to locate full-text resources through the Library or through open access; transfer your search query from a webpage and rerun a search in Google Scholar; format a reference in a particular citation style format; and pin a resource to your Scholar library for reading at a later time.
Installing Google Scholar Button
Currently, the browser plugin/extension is compatible with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.
Add the extension to your browser to get started:
Download Google Scholar Button for Chrome
Download Google Scholar Button for Firefox
Download Google Scholar Button for Edge
Using Google Scholar Button
Google Scholar Button incorporates research into your workflow by allowing you to run search queries, lookup scholarly content, and locate relevant resources.
You can use Google Scholar Button in the following ways:

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- Last Updated: Jan 23, 2023 1:15 PM
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