Using Google Scholar

Google Scholar [scholar.google.com] is different from Google. Google searches public web content - if your instructor says not to use Google, they probably mean they don't want you to use content from the public web. Google Scholar, however, searches journal and conference papers, theses and dissertations, academic books, pre-prints, abstracts, technical reports and other scholarly literature.

Using Google Scholar

Results in Google Scholar will be displayed with one of several notations:

Full-Text @Davenport U, [PDF], [HTML], [DOC] - or have no notation at all.

If a notation is displayed, click the link to access the full text.

google scholar

If no notation is displayed, click on the double arrows >> under the citation.

google scholar

This will display Check DU Library Holdings and check if the DU Library has the full text of the article. If we don't have access, it will direct you to a page to request it through our Inter-library loan services, where we will get the article for you from a different library.

google scholar

`Other Tips`

Create alerts to be notified when new articles are published on topics you are interested in. Conduct a search and on the bottom menu on the left side click Create alert.

creat alert

Find related articles by looking at an article's reference list and copying and pasting full citations into Google Scholar.
Click on the keywords under Related searches to find more articles.

The Cited by link under the Google Scholar citation is another way to expand your search and find more relevant articles. When you click on the Cited by link, you will find other publications that cite the article.

cite by

Google Scholar also provides a Cite button. Click on the " Cite link and it will open up a box with the citation for the article. Make sure you look at the APA citation. Google Scholar will give you the citation for the article, but make sure you double check the format of the citation before turning in your paper/project. You can use the APA Help guide to check the formatting.

cite button

To refine your search results, use the limit options to the left of your search results.

google scholar

To use Google Scholar Advanced Search options, click on the menu icon in the top left corner of the Google Scholar homepage. You can search by keyword, phrase,author, title and publication, as well as limiting your search results by date.

advanced search

To save an article, click on the star icon, beneath the description of the article.

save an article

Click My Library at the top right corner of the page to see your saved articles.

my library

You can label the articles, delete them or create a reading list for a topic You can even export the citation information into a CSV file, EndNote and others by clicking on the Export all button under the search box.

my library

Google automatically places AND in between each word, so there's no need to use AND as a Boolean operator.
Use OR to search for two words right next to each other (Google doesn't recognize parenthesis). It must be completely capitalized.
NOT is replaced with a minus sign in Google. It must be placed directly before each word you want to exclude. (e.g., "social media" -Twitter -Snapchat)
Use quotation marks to search for exact phrases (e.g., "climate change")
Focus your searches by excluding unnecessary words like in, to, with, the, an, a, by, very, of.
Use intitle to search for a word or phrase in an article title.(e.g., intitle:penicillin or intitle:"systematic review")
Use allintitle to show for multiple words anywhere in the title. (e.g.,allintitle:medical school Chicago)
Use author to search for a specific author (e.g., author: Hodges)

This content is from the University of Connecticut Library, Using Google Scholar guide, licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0