Google Scholar Basics

Google Scholar searches are very similar to standard Google searches.  Enter your desired keywords or phrase in the search bar. To search for scholarly articles, confirm that you have selected the Article button and not Case Law.

If you will want to save or bookmark any of your search results, you will need to sign into your Google Account at this time. You may do so on your page of search results in the upper right corner.

Advanced search may be accessed via the hamburger menu icon at the top left of the screen.

The advanced search option allows you to include additional specifications, such as author's name, along with keywords or titles into your search parameters.

Each result from your search displays the article's title and authors as well as information about the publication. You may filter results by limiting dates and you may choose to sort your results by date rather than relevance.  If you select an article you may be able to read the full document if it is linked as a .pdf or if the information is published freely. However, you may find that you are only able to read the paper's abstract; there may be a notification that you do not have access to this content. If that is the case, please refer to the "Using Google Scholar With OneSearch" page of this guide.

Find Related Articles: Did you find an article that you liked? If so, select the Related Articles link below the article to discover similar sources.

Use Operators:  Your keywords become more powerful search tools if combined with operators.

• phrase searching - If you wish to keep certain words together in a specific order, put them inside quotation marks: 

"Catherine the Great"

• the OR operator will search for results using both of the words and the words individually:

cats OR dogs

• exclusion - Use of a hyphen or minus symbol will exclude the word following it from the search. Do not put a space after the hyphen:

dogs -retrievers

• the AND operator will search for results that include both keywords together:

queens AND kings

• the intitle operator will include results that use your keyword within the document's title:

intitle:frogs

Research the Authors: If you find an article you like, it may be worth it to see if the author has written more papers on the subject. Many of the author names will be clickable links and will take you to a list of their publications.

For additional help, please refer to the Google Scholar Help Pages.

You can set up Google Scholar to send you publication alerts on your chosen topics.

To set up automatic email alerts:

• select the hamburger file icon in the upper left
• select Alerts
• confirm your email address
• type in the keywords you would like alerts on
• Google Scholar will then send you occasional alerts with information on newly discovered sources

To cancel your alerts:

• select the hamburger file icon in the upper left
• select Alerts
• select Cancel next to the alert that you wish to cancel