Google Scholar Help
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| Understanding a Search Result |
Each Google Scholar search result represents a body of scholarly work. This may include one or more related articles, or even multiple versions of one article. For example, a search result may consist of a group of articles including a preprint, a conference article, a journal article, and an anthology article, all of which are associated with a single research effort. Grouping these articles allows us to more accurately measure the impact of research and to better present the different research efforts in an area.
Each search result contains bibliographic information, such as the title, author names, and source of publication. One set of bibliographic data is associated with the entire group of related articles and is our best estimate at the representative article for the group. This bibliographic data is based on information from the articles in the group, as well as on citations to these articles from other scholarly works.
Explanation of Links
| 1. | Title – Links to the abstract of the article, or when available on the web, the complete article. |
| 2. | Cited By – Identifies other papers that have cited articles in the group. |
| 3. | Related Articles – Finds other papers that are similar to articles in this group. |
| 4. | Library Links (online) – Locates an electronic version of the work through your affiliated library's resources. These links appear automatically if you're on campus. |
| 5. | Library Links (offline) – Locates libraries which have a physical copy of the work. |
| 6. | Group of – Finds other articles included in this group of scholarly works, possibly preliminary, which you may be able to access. Examples include preprints, abstracts, conference papers or other adaptations. |
| 7. | Web Search – Searches for information about this work on Google. |
| 8. | BL Direct – Purchase the full text of the article through the British Library. Google receives no compensation from this service. |
| Searching Google Scholar |
How do I search by author?
Enter the author's name in quotations: "d knuth". To increase the number of results, use initials rather than the full first name.
If you're finding too many papers which mention the author, you can use the "author:" operator to search for specific authors. For example, you can try [author:knuth], [author:"d knuth"], or [author:"donald e knuth"].
Still not satisfied? Try our Advanced Search page . See our Advanced Search Tips for more information.
How do I search by title?
Put the paper's title in quotations: "A History of the China Sea." Google Scholar will automatically find the paper as well as other papers which mention it.
How do I find recent research on a particular topic?
Just click on "Recent articles" on the right side of any results page, and your results will be re-sorted to help you find newer research more quickly. The new ordering considers factors like the prominence of the author's and journal's previous papers, as well as the full text of each article and how often it has been cited.
What does the Related Articles link do?
For each Google Scholar search result, we try to automatically determine which articles in our index are most closely related to it. You can see a list of these articles by clicking the "Related Articles" link that appears next to many results. The list of related articles is ranked primarily by how similar these articles are to the original result, but also takes into account the relevance of each paper. Finding sets of related papers and books is often a great way for novices to get acquainted with a topic. However, we've found that even experts can sometimes be surprised to discover related work in their area of expertise.
How do I search for papers in specific publications?
Within the Advanced Search page, you can specify keywords which must appear in both the article and the publication name. See our Advanced Search Tips for more information.
How do I search by category?
From the Advanced Search page, you can search for scholarly literature within seven broad areas of research. Simply check the boxes for the subject areas you're interested in searching.
Why are there author names on the left hand side of my results page?
We automatically suggest authors related to your query – just click on an author's name and you'll see their papers. Finding authors who publish on the topics you're interested in is often a great way to get better acquainted with a field and discover related work you may not have found otherwise.
| General Questions |
What do you include in Google Scholar?
Google Scholar covers peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts, and other scholarly literature from all broad areas of research. You'll find works from a wide variety of academic publishers and professional societies, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Google Scholar may also include multiple versions of an article, possibly preliminary, which you may be able to access.
Learn more about how to include your research in Google Scholar.
Why isn't my paper included?
We're always working to include new sources, and it's likely that you'll see additions to our index soon. Check to see if other articles from the same journal, conference or repository can be found using Google Scholar. If not, please ask the publisher or the scholarly society to contact us so we can include their content.
What are the results marked [citation] and why can't I click on them?
These are articles which other scholarly articles have referred to, but which we haven't found online. A great deal of scholarly literature is still offline, and until these papers are available online, citation-only results can help researchers find as much relevant information as possible.
But I just found a promising citation to an article in the Journal of Prosimian Dialectical Reasoning! Can't I read the full text of the article somewhere?
The article may be available through your library's holdings. Make sure that Library Links are active to see whether your library can give you access to the paper.
How can I add the full citation of a result on Google Scholar to my bibliography manager?
Just visit the Scholar Preferences page and select your preferred citation format in the "Bibliography Manager" section. We currently support RefWorks, RefMan, EndNote, and BibTeX. Once you've saved your preferences, you can import a citation by clicking on the appropriate link in your Google Scholar search results.
I'm not a member of any libraries. Are there any other ways I can read the full text online for free?
Perhaps. Preprints, early drafts, and other versions of the article may be available online without a subscription. We often provide links to several versions, but beware: preprints may undergo significant revision before publication and you may be reading a document that has been substantially modified. In some cases an article may not be available for free in any format.
The description of my article is wrong and I am appropriately irritated. How do I correct it?We apologize, and we assure you the error was not an intentional one. Automated extraction of information from articles in diverse fields can be tricky, so an error sometimes sneaks through. Please send us a search query that returns your article, along with the correct description that should appear. It may take a little while for us to fix the mistake as there is much to do to make Google Scholar work better for everyone. We appreciate your help and your patience.
Why are you asking us to "Stand on the shoulders of giants"? Are you really giants?
Not even close. That phrase is our acknowledgement that much of scholarly research involves building on what others have already discovered. It's taken from Sir Isaac Newton's famous quote, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
