GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Compiled by Helene van der Sandt

WHAT IS GOOGLE SCHOLAR?

• Is a search engine that searches for scholarly literature across many disciplines

• Searches for articles, theses, books, abstracts, court opinions from:Academic publishers, professional societies, online

repositories, universities and other web sites

• Google Scholar also includes court opinions and patents

Are all Google Scholar articles full text?

• No, not all Google Scholar articles will have free full text

• Some Google Scholar articles are linked to full text in library resources, when working on campus

• If a Google Scholar article is not linked to full text, check in the Library Catalogue for a print or electronic copy

Full Text?

HOW TO USE SEARCH TECHNIQUES

IN GOOGLE SCHOLAR?

TITLE SEARCH

Put the paper’s title in quotations

Example: “long walk to freedom”

Google Scholar will automatically find the

paper or book as well as other papers which mention it

Keyword SearchDecide on the main concepts (keywords) of your

topic

Avoid words that are vague or have multiple meanings

Also think of: SynonymsAlternative spellingsAbbreviations / AcronymsBroader or narrower meanings of your original keywords

You may lose lots of useful information if you do not search for the alternative terms of your keywords

Combining Keywords with AND• Type in all the keywords that must be present in

your search results

For example: You want to see if chocolate makes people happier.

• Keywords: happiness chocolate (Google Scholar automatically puts AND between keywords)

• Can also search: happiness AND chocolate

Alternative Keywords• If your keyword has a synonym or alternative

term, how do you indicate this to Google Scholar?

• By putting OR between the alternative terms for the keyword, e.g. TB OR tuberculosis

• You can also put a | (vertical bar) between the alternative terms of the keyword, e.g. TB|Tuberculosis

OR

Combining AND with OR

• When you are using both the AND plus OR operator it makes it easier to put round brackets round all the keywords that have alternative terms indicated by the OR operator

Example: Discuss the therapy for tuberculosis

(therapy OR therapies OR medicine OR medicines OR treatment OR treating) AND (tuberculosis OR TB)

OR ORAND

Excluding keywords

Some times you want to exclude a keyword from your search results

For example you want to search for viruses, but not computer viruses

(virus OR viruses) –computer

Can also search (virus|viruses) –computer

Phrases as keywords You can indicate a phrase by surrounding the phrase by

quotation marks “ “ Use phrases when you want to search for particular

words in a particular order

This means no other words will be between your keywords

You can also use more than one phrase, e.g.

“South Africa”

More Search Tips/Help

• www.googleguide.com

• Google and Google Scholar use the same search techniques

Cheat Sheet

http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html

EXERCISE 1

Discuss the dangers of global warming

Identify keywords“global warming”

dangers

Add alternatives/related keywords

(danger OR dangers OR risk OR risks)

Combine Keywords

“global warming”

AND

(dangers OR danger OR dangerous

OR risk OR risks)

Type keywords in search box

If the text box is not big enough to type in all the alternative for dangers, you can add the other alternatives on the next page.

Add the other alternatives

The other alternatives added

Search Results

Keywords are indicated in bold.

v

v

vv

SEARCH RESULTS

Specify types of articles

If you only interested in “Legal documents”, click here

You can include or exclude patents and citations

Specify the date

You can select one of these options or type a specific date range under “Custom range”

Citations

This paper was cited 422 times by other papers. Click on it so see the papers that cited this specific paper.

Related articles

Click on related articles to see additional resources on the same keywords

FINDING THE FULL TEXT OF THE RESOURCE

If the full-text of the resource is available freely online, Google Scholar will give you the link.

Click on links labeled [PDF] or [HTML] to the right of the screen.

Also, check out the All versions link below the search result.

Google Scholar also locates an electronic version of the work through our affiliated library resources

If you are using a computer on campus it will let you access your library's online subscriptions.

Click on the title of article if there is no PDF link to full text.

Link to full text

WHEN FULL-TEXT ACCESS IS NOT AVAILABLE ON

GOOGLE SCHOLAR

If there is no access to full text

Access restricted

Note the publication details

• Journal Title: Sustainable Development

• Year – 2005

• Volume 13

• Issue 4

• Pages 228-238 (or article title)

Access to Catalogue via Library website http://library.nmmu.ac.za

Library Catalogue

Library Catalogue

Click on this entry

Access to this title is available - online

Click on the title

Access via Business Source Complete (EBSCO)

Click on the link

Scroll down to the relevant article

Full text - PDF

EXAMPLE OF A JOURNAL AVAILABLE

ONLINE AND IN PRINT

EXAMPLE OF A JOURNAL AVAILABLE ONLINE AND IN PRINT

Some volumes are also electronically available by clicking on the title and then on the link

Some volumes of this journal is available in print in the library

Thank You