Google Scholar

Many of you begin your academic research in Google Scholar. Google Scholar is a commercial search engine that specialises in academic papers. It is free to use and, under the motto “stand on the shoulders of giants”, provides a huge range of full texts and bibliographic information for almost every subject area.

However, it is not communicated which sources make up this database, nor is it clear how the “relevance” of the results is calculated. The sources are automatically chosen and do not go through any kind of quality control. It is therefore not guaranteed that the information is correct or complete.

Things to note when searching in Google Scholar:

• If you are looking for access to a paper that you already know the name of, Google Scholar can be a good resource, due to its large data basis.
• If you are researching a specific topic, however, it is worth trying to narrow down your search. Use the advanced search (found using the menu button on the left), where you can search for phrases, combine search terms using AND, OR and NOT or search directly for a specific author, title, journal or publication period.
• In contrast to other academic search engines or databases, you cannot really filter or reorganise your search results in Google Scholar: the order is based on how “relevant” the search engine decides the source is.
• Google Scholar does however include citation analyses, meaning that you can see how often a paper was cited immediately in the results list.
• You can use the “Bibliography manager” in the settings to directly export your results into your chosen reference management programme.
• You can instantly see if you can access the PDF or not. Find out more here.

We always recommend that you do not limit yourself to one research tool and to use a variety of search engines or databases. We can support you in finding the right databases to use - just get in touch!

You can find a full overview of our support options here.