google scholar thesis search

Thesis and Dissertation Guide

• Starting your Dissertation/Thesis
• Dissertation/Thesis Resources
• Books That May Help
• Literature Reviews
• Annotated Bibliography
• We Don't Have It? / Interlibrary Loan
• Online Learning Study Tips
• Search Strategy
• Advanced Search Techniques
• Kemp Library Video Tutorials
• Find Articles / Journals / Databases
• What are...
• Database Video Tutorials
• Peer Reviewed
• How to confirm and cite peer review
• Primary/Secondary Sources
• Other Types of Sources (i.e. Newspapers)
• Legal Research Resources
• Evidence Based Practice/Appraisal Resources

Google Scholar

• Website Evaluation
• Internet Searching
• Apps You Didn't Know You Needed
• Who is citing me?
• Questions After Hours
• ESU Thesis Submission
• ESU Dissertation Submission
• How to Integrate
• How to Use It

What is Google Scholar and Why Should You Care?

Google Scholar is a special division of Google that searches for academic content. It is not as robust as Google, and as such it can be harder to search. However, if you are looking for a specific article it is a fantastic resource for finding out if you can access it through your library or if it's available for free.

Below are a few videos on how to use Google Scholar (you can skip the intros if you want) that will show you tips and tricks on how to best use Google Scholar.

Did you know that you can use Google Scholar in addition to Primo to help search Kemp library materials? You just have to add us to your Google Scholar and our results will show up in your searches showing you what you have access to as an ESU community member!

• Go to  Google Scholar 
• Make sure you're logged into your Google Account -  you'll see your initials or your icon in the top right hand corner of the screen if you're logged in. 
• Click on  Settings  (either from the top of the Scholar home page, or from the drop-down on the right hand side of the results page).

Choose  Library Links .

Type ‘East Stroudsburg University’ into the search box.

Click the boxes next to “ESU” and "Kemp Library"

Click  Save .

If you have other institutions you're affilitated with, or ResearchGate, you can add them too!

Getting to Google Scholar Settings:

The Library Link Screen: Search, Select and Save!

What your search results will look like: 

 Add / Reorder  

Databases have more sophisticated search features than Google Scholar , but if you have a one or two word topic Google Scholar can be useful.  You can also try using the Advanced Search in Google Scholar (see the first video below). 

However, if you're having trouble finding something specific, i.e. a specific article, try Google Scholar. For example you want " Game of Thrones and Graffiti" and you don't see it in a database, search the title of the article in Google Scholar (here you'd search "Game of Thrones and Graffiti"). You may find it freely available OR discover it is available through the library, but in a database you didn't look at. 

If we don't have it and you can't access it on Google Scholar, you can always request it via interlibrary loan .

"If Google Scholar isn’t turning up what you need, try an open Google search with the article title in quotes, and type the added filter “filetype:pdf”. This scours the open web for papers hosted somewhere, by someone, in PDF format. Google Books provides limited preview access to many copyrighted books. Other alternate services include  SemanticScholar ,  Microsoft Academic ,  Dimensions , or  GetTheResearch . Here too there are subject-specific portals like  EconBiz  or the  Virtual Health Library , some of which offer multilingual search options." -  Paragraph taken from A Wikipedia Librarian. 

The other services like Microsoft Academic mentioned above are also useful when looking for freely available journal article and research! Don't forget to cite everything you use in your paper/project/presentation/etc. 

Google Scholar Videos

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• Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 3:12 PM
• URL: https://esu.libguides.com/thesis

18 Google Scholar tips all students should know

Dec 13, 2022

[[read-time]] min read

Think of this guide as your personal research assistant.

“It’s hard to pick your favorite kid,” Anurag Acharya says when I ask him to talk about a favorite Google Scholar feature he’s worked on. “I work on product, engineering, operations, partnerships,” he says. He’s been doing it for 18 years, which as of this month, happens to be how long Google Scholar has been around.

Google Scholar is also one of Google’s longest-running services. The comprehensive database of research papers, legal cases and other scholarly publications was the fourth Search service Google launched, Anurag says. In honor of this very important tool’s 18th anniversary, I asked Anurag to share 18 things you can do in Google Scholar that you might have missed.

1. Copy article citations in the style of your choice.

With a simple click of the cite button (which sits below an article entry), Google Scholar will give you a ready-to-use citation for the article in five styles, including APA, MLA and Chicago. You can select and copy the one you prefer.

2. Dig deeper with related searches.

Google Scholar’s related searches can help you pinpoint your research; you’ll see them show up on a page in between article results. Anurag describes it like this: You start with a big topic — like “cancer” — and follow up with a related search like “lung cancer” or “colon cancer” to explore specific kinds of cancer.

Related searches can help you find what you’re looking for.

3. And don’t miss the related articles.

This is another great way to find more papers similar to one you found helpful — you can find this link right below an entry.

4. Read the papers you find.

Scholarly articles have long been available only by subscription. To keep you from having to log in every time you see a paper you’re interested in, Scholar works with libraries and publishers worldwide to integrate their subscriptions directly into its search results. Look for a link marked [PDF] or [HTML]. This also includes preprints and other free-to-read versions of papers.

5. Access Google Scholar tools from anywhere on the web with the Scholar Button browser extension.

The Scholar Button browser extension is sort of like a mini version of Scholar that can move around the web with you. If you’re searching for something, hitting the extension icon will show you studies about that topic, and if you’re reading a study, you can hit that same button to find a version you read, create a citation or to save it to your Scholar library.

Install the Scholar Button Chrome browser extension to access Google Scholar from anywhere on the web.

6. Learn more about authors through Scholar profiles.

There are many times when you’ll want to know more about the researchers behind the ideas you’re looking into. You can do this by clicking on an author’s name when it’s hyperlinked in a search result. You’ll find all of their work as well as co-authors, articles they’re cited in and so on. You can also follow authors from their Scholar profile to get email updates about their work, or about when and where their work is cited.

7. Easily find topic experts.

One last thing about author profiles: If there are topics listed below an author’s name on their profile, you can click on these areas of expertise and you’ll see a page of more authors who are researching and publishing on these topics, too.

8. Search for court opinions with the “Case law” button.

Scholar is the largest free database of U.S. court opinions. When you search for something using Google Scholar, you can select the “Case law” button below the search box to see legal cases your keywords are referenced in. You can read the opinions and a summary of what they established.

9. See how those court opinions have been cited.

If you want to better understand the impact of a particular piece of case law, you can select “How Cited,” which is below an entry, to see how and where the document has been cited. For example, here is the How Cited page for Marbury v. Madison , a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that established that courts can strike down unconstitutional laws or statutes.

10. Understand how a legal opinion depends on another.

When you’re looking at how case laws are cited within Google Scholar, click on “Cited by” and check out the horizontal bars next to the different results. They indicate how relevant the cited opinion is in the court decision it’s cited within. You will see zero, one, two or three bars before each result. Those bars indicate the extent to which the new opinion depends on and refers to the cited case.

In the Cited by page for New York Times Company v. Sullivan, court cases with three bars next to their name heavily reference the original case. One bar indicates less reliance.

11. Sign up for Google Scholar alerts.

Want to stay up to date on a specific topic? Create an alert for a Google Scholar search for your topics and you’ll get email updates similar to Google Search alerts. Another way to keep up with research in your area is to follow new articles by leading researchers. Go to their profiles and click “Follow.” If you’re a junior grad student, you may consider following articles related to your advisor’s research topics, for instance.

12. Save interesting articles to your library.

It’s easy to go down fascinating rabbit hole after rabbit hole in Google Scholar. Don’t lose track of your research and use the save option that pops up under search results so articles will be in your library for later reading.

13. Keep your library organized with labels.

Labels aren’t only for Gmail! You can create labels within your Google Scholar library so you can keep your research organized. Click on “My library,” and then the “Manage labels…” option to create a new label.

14. If you’re a researcher, share your research with all your colleagues.

Many research funding agencies around the world now mandate that funded articles should become publicly free to read within a year of publication — or sooner. Scholar profiles list such articles to help researchers keep track of them and open up access to ones that are still locked down. That means you can immediately see what is currently available from researchers you’re interested in and how many of their papers will soon be publicly free to read.

15. Look through Scholar’s annual top publications and papers.

Every year, Google Scholar releases the top publications based on the most-cited papers. That list (available in 11 languages) will also take you to each publication’s top papers — this takes into account the “h index,” which measures how much impact an article has had. It’s an excellent place to start a research journey as well as get an idea about the ideas and discoveries researchers are currently focused on.

16. Get even more specific with Advanced Search.

Click on the hamburger icon on the upper left-hand corner and select Advanced Search to fine-tune your queries. For example, articles with exact words or a particular phrase in the title or articles from a particular journal and so on.

17. Find extra help on Google Scholar’s help page.

It might sound obvious, but there’s a wealth of useful information to be found here — like how often the database is updated, tips on formatting searches and how you can use your library subscriptions when you’re off-campus (looking at you, college students!). Oh, and you’ll even learn the origin of that quote on Google Scholar’s home page.

18. Keep up with Google Scholar news.

Don’t forget to check out the Google Scholar blog for updates on new features and tips for using this tool even better.

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• Harvard Library
• Research Guides
• Faculty of Arts & Sciences Libraries

A Scholar's Guide to Google

• Google Scholar
• Google Books

Using Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a special version of Google specially designed for searching scholarly literature. It covers peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research.

A Harvard ID and PIN are required for Google Scholar in order to access the full text of books, journal articles, etc. provided by licensed resources to which Harvard subscribes. Indviduals outside of Harvard may access Google Scholar directly at http://scholar.google.com/ , but they will not have access to the full text of articles provided by Harvard Library E-Resources .

Browsing Search Results

The following screenshots illustrate some of the features that accompany individual records in Google Scholar's results lists.

Find It@Harvard – Locates an electronic version of the work (when available) through Harvard's subscription library resources. If no electronic full text is available, a link to the appropriate HOLLIS Catalog record is provided for alternative formats.

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.

Cited By – Identifies other papers that have cited articles in the group.

Related Articles - 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.

Cached - The "Cached" link is the snapshot that Google took of the page when they crawled the web. The page may have changed since that time and the cached page may reference images which are no longer available.

Web Search – Searches for information on the Web about this work using the Google search engine.

BL Direct – Purchase the full text of the article through the British Library. Once transferred into BL Direct, users can also link to the full collection of The British Library document supply content. Prices for the service are expressed in British pounds. Abstracts for some documents are provided.

The Advanced Search feature in Google Scholar allows researchers to limit their query to particular authors, publications, dates, and subject areas.  

Page Last Reviewed: February 25, 2008

• << Previous: Google Books
• Last Updated: Jun 8, 2017 1:21 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/googleguide

Harvard University Digital Accessibility Policy

• University of Texas Libraries
• UT Libraries

Google Scholar

• Search with Google Scholar

Why use Google Scholar?

Google Scholar can help:

• Identify authors and journals related to your topic
• Find scholarly works from a wide variety of sources
• Find articles, books, theses, abstracts, conference proceedings and more
• Locate content not found in a regular Google search

Ways to Use Google Scholar On Campus

Use the main search bar on the  Libraries homepage  to access library materials (Books & Media, Articles, etc.).

Use the Google Scholar link under the search bar to search directly in Google Scholar. 

Look for View It @UT  links in Google Scholar to access the full text of articles.

Ways to Use Google Scholar Off Campus

• Option 1: Google Scholar - UT Libraries Link Use the UT Libraries Google Scholar Link (also on the library homepage). Look for the View It @UT link next to your results to access the full text via the UT Libraries subscription. Note that not all Libraries subscriptions and content will appear in Google Scholar.
• Option 2: Google Scholar - Customized Settings Set your Google account preferences to look for the full text of your Google Scholar results through the UT Libraries any time you're signed in. Click the link and then save.

Ask a Librarian

Chat With Us

EID login required

Search Tips

Use the Advanced Scholar Search to limit your results to specific subject areas, dates, publications, etc.

To search information from specific types of websites, like government or non-profit organizations, use the following pattern:

keyword(s) site:.domain extension

To find government statistics on climate change, search: 

climate change statistics site:.gov 

To find information on non-profit organizations working with homeless teens, search:

teen homelessness site:.org

Domain extensions:

• .gov - government
• .org - non-profit organizations
• .edu - education
• .com - commercial
• .net - community networks
• .mil - military
• .int - international organizations
• Last Updated: Aug 5, 2020 12:52 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/googlescholar

University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

How to Find Dissertations and Theses

• Finding Dissertations and Theses
• University of Illinois Dissertations

Google Scholar

Proquest dissertations and theses, non-u.s. dissertations.

• Dissertation Tracking

Ask a Librarian

Google Scholar searches specifically for scholarly materials, including Open Access (freely available) dissertations and theses. Many institutions make their dissertations publicly available, making Google Scholar a great place to search.

See the Library's guide on Google for Academic Research for more information.

If the Library does not have a copy of a dissertation or a theses, use ProQuest Dissertations and Theses to obtain a citation for the dissertation. Most American and Canadian universities are represented in this database, as well as selected British and European universities. Dissertations completed at many major U.S. universities during the past 10 years (and sometimes earlier) are available as full-text downloads.

If full text is not available, you can request a dissertation through interlibrary loan.

• ProQuest Dissertations and Theses This link opens in a new window PQDT is a collection of citations to dissertations and theses worldwide from 1861 to the present day. Full-text is available for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and some of the older graduate works. PQDT is also the official digital dissertations archive for the Library of Congress. Also included are the citations to British and Irish dissertations and theses (PQDT: UK & Ireland) since 1761 and abstracts for content since 1986. Note: UIUC masters theses are not in PQDT. They are only found in IDEALS or in the library catalog .

A note on terminology for dissertations and theses: these words are used differently depending on the country (at least in the English speaking world). In the US, dissertations are for doctoral work while a thesis can be a for a bachelor’s or master’s degree. However, it’s often flipped in Europe, e.g., a master’s dissertation and a doctoral thesis.

• The DART-Europe E-theses Portal DART-Europe is a partnership of research libraries in Europe who are working together to improve access to European theses. Several hundred universities link their digital repositories to DART-Europe and link to full text theses.
• EThOS: e-theses online service A project by the British Library Board to provide access to all dissertations from institutions in the UK. This website indexes the dissertations and provides links to full text where available and provide assistance to institutions digitizing dissertations. If available, full text dissertations are free to download.
• Foreign Dissertations at the Center for Research Libraries Try here when looking for a dissertation outside of the United States and Canada. CRL acquires hundreds of non-US, non-Canadian doctoral dissertations a year to add to its 800,000+ collection of dissertations. Acquisitions are primarily through the demand purchase program . Because the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a member of CRL, loans to the U of I community are provided free of charge - just fill out a standard interlibrary loan request and put "Item held by CRL" in the notes field.
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations This directory provides links to country-specific and international online libraries of electronic theses and dissertations. Many items, including those dating back to the early 1900s, are available in full text for free. For those not available in full text, fill out an interlibrary loan request.
• Theses Canada Portal A searchable catalog of all Canadian theses published since 1965, many of which are available in full-text electronic versions which can be downloaded free by students, scholars, and the public. You can also access and search for free full text electronic versions of Canadian theses and dissertations that were published from the beginning of 1998 to August 31, 2002.
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• Last Updated: Aug 2, 2023 2:14 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.illinois.edu/finddissertationstheses

Google Scholar: Google Scholar

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.

Is Google Scholar right for my research?

Google Scholar is useful for:

• locating more information on partial citations. For example, Google Scholar can often find an article with just the title, and will provide the full citation and access to full text options once you have set up Google Scholar.
• discovering keywords that define your topic.
• helping a beginning researcher identify journal titles and authors connected with subjects of interest.
• finding "gray literature" like conference proceedings. It includes many articles that wouldn't get included in other indexing services.
• highlighting highly cited works on the topic.

Google Scholar cannot:

• search with the accuracy of Library databases.
• sort/search by disciplinary field.
• browse by title.

Searching in Google Scholar is imprecise when compared with discipline-specific databases. If your research requires very comprehensive searching, or if you are not satisfied with Google Scholar's results, use individual research databases.

Research Databases

• Finding Full Text
• Using "Cited By"
• Search Limits & Advanced Search
• Other Useful Features

Google Scholar:  https://scholar.google.com/ 

On-Campus? Google Scholar will automatically display links for access to the full text of search results.

Off Campus? Set  Scholar Settings  (From scholar.google.com   , click on the Menu icon in the upper left corner and select "Settings") to configure Google Scholar to access Georgia State resources.

If you do not see the word Settings, look for the cog icon. 

Select Library Links from the Scholar Settings menu. ​

• enter Georgia State University in search box
• check the box next to check the box next to Georgia State University Find it @ GSU
• check the box next to  "Open WorldCat - Library Search"

• Learn more about Google Scholar

There may be several options for getting to the full text. Find it @ GSU  will either provide access to the full text of the article or provide a link to request a copy through Interlibrary Services (free for you). Don't pay if prompted. Check with the GSU library first.

If you don't find the full text and don't see the Find It @ GSU option, click  on the double arrows ">>"  under the citation to display Find It @ GSU

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. 

You can also search within the publications that cite the article. Select the checkbox that says "Search within citing articles" and add additional terms to narrow your search. 

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

To use Google Scholar Advanced Search options, click on the menu icon in the top left corner of the Goggle Scholar homepage. 

Click on "Advanced Search".

Advanced Search lets you search in the author, title, and publication fields, as well as limit your search results by date.

Related articles:  find articles on the same topic as the citation

All  # versions:  find other versions of the article found on the internet 

Cite:   click on the Quotation Mark icon  to open the Cite Window. Copy and Paste the formatted citation or use one of the links to import the citation into a bibliography manager.

Attribution

This guide was adapted from the University of Connecticut Library's "Finding Information: Using Google Scholar" Guide licensed under CCBYNC 4.0.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/findinformation/googlescholar

• Last Updated: Jan 31, 2023 9:28 AM
• URL: https://research.library.gsu.edu/googlescholar

Reference management. Clean and simple.

The top list of academic search engines

1. Google Scholar

4. science.gov, 5. semantic scholar, 6. baidu scholar, get the most out of academic search engines, frequently asked questions about academic search engines, related articles.

Academic search engines have become the number one resource to turn to in order to find research papers and other scholarly sources. While classic academic databases like Web of Science and Scopus are locked behind paywalls, Google Scholar and others can be accessed free of charge. In order to help you get your research done fast, we have compiled the top list of free academic search engines.

Google Scholar is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only lets you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free but also often provides links to full-text PDF files.

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles
• Abstracts: only a snippet of the abstract is available
• Related articles: ✔
• References: ✔
• Cited by: ✔
• Links to full text: ✔
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, RIS, BibTeX

BASE is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany. That is also where its name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles (contains duplicates)
• Abstracts: ✔
• Related articles: ✘
• References: ✘
• Cited by: ✘
• Export formats: RIS, BibTeX

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open-access research papers. For each search result, a link to the full-text PDF or full-text web page is provided.

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles
• Links to full text: ✔ (all articles in CORE are open access)
• Export formats: BibTeX

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need anymore to query all those resources separately!

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles and reports
• Links to full text: ✔ (available for some databases)
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX (available for some databases)

Semantic Scholar is the new kid on the block. Its mission is to provide more relevant and impactful search results using AI-powered algorithms that find hidden connections and links between research topics.

• Coverage: approx. 40 million articles
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX

Although Baidu Scholar's interface is in Chinese, its index contains research papers in English as well as Chinese.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 100 million articles
• Abstracts: only snippets of the abstract are available
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX

RefSeek searches more than one billion documents from academic and organizational websites. Its clean interface makes it especially easy to use for students and new researchers.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 1 billion documents
• Abstracts: only snippets of the article are available
• Export formats: not available

Consider using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with Google Scholar and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

Google Scholar is an academic search engine, and it is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only let's you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free, but also often provides links to full text PDF file.

Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature developed at the Allen Institute for AI. Sematic Scholar was publicly released in 2015 and uses advances in natural language processing to provide summaries for scholarly papers.

BASE , as its name suggest is an academic search engine. It is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany and that's where it name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers. For each search result a link to the full text PDF or full text web page is provided.

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need any more to query all those resources separately!

Using Google Scholar

Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. It includes articles, theses, books, abstracts, court opinions, and more. Be aware that it is not a comprehensive resource and will not always take you to the full text of items you find. For ease of access, you can customize Google Scholar to link you to content available through the University of Nevada, Reno Libraries:

The "Settings" page in Google Scholar. The three horizontal bars are enclosed in a red square and indicate the “Menu” link. The words “Settings,” "Library links," and "University of Nevada - Reno - View It @ UNR" are enclosed in red rectangles to highlight their location on the page. There is also a checkmark in the checkbox beside the “University of Nevada - Reno - View It @ UNR” option to indicate that it has been selected.

Follow the steps below to link your accounts.

• Open Google Scholar .
• In the upper left corner, click on the Menu (three horizontal bars) and then Settings.
• Click "Library Links" on the left side of the page.
• Type "University of Nevada Reno" and click search .
• Make sure that you put a check mark in the box preceding “University of Nevada, Reno – View It @ UNR.”
• After you run a search, on the results page, you will see a link titled “ View It @ UNR ” to the right side of any articles that the Libraries have access to. Clicking this link will take you to a page with the full text of the article. If you are off-campus, you will have to enter your NetID and password to gain access to the full text.

If you find an article through Google Scholar that the University of Nevada, Reno Libraries does not have access to, you can request to borrow a copy from another library for free. See our guide to requesting books and articles through Interlibrary Loan .

Finding Sources

Finding sources – initial searching with google scholar.

Google or another search engine is an easy way to quickly get an overview on your topic. Even more effective than Google Search is  Google Advanced Search , and even better than that for academic resources is  Google Scholar . Let’s consider Marvin’s experience.

Marvin: So can I just use Google or Bing to find sources?

Prof: Internet search engines can help you find sources, but they aren’t always the best route to getting to a good source. Try entering the search term “bottled water quality” into Google, without quotation marks around the term. How many hits do you get?

Marvin types it in.

Marvin: 1,180,000. That’s pretty much what I get whenever I do an Internet search. Too many results.

Prof: Which is one of the drawbacks of using only Internet search engines. The Internet may have cut down on the physical walking needed to find good sources, but it’s made up for the time savings by pointing you to more places than you could possibly go! But there are some ways you can narrow your search to get fewer, more focused results.

Marvin: Yeah, I know. Sometimes I add extra words in and it helps weed down the hits.

Prof: By combining search terms with certain words or symbols, you can control what the search engine looks for. If you put more than one term into a Google search box, the search engine will only give you sites that include both terms, since it uses the Boolean operator AND as the default for its searches. If you put OR between two search terms, you’ll end up getting even more results, because Google will look for all websites containing either of the terms. Using a minus sign in front of a term eliminates things you’re not interested in. It’s the Google equivalent of the Boolean operator NOT. Try entering bottled water quality health -teeth.

Marvin types in the words, remembering suddenly that he has to make an appointment with the dentist.

Marvin: 784,000 hits.

Prof: Still a lot. You can also put quotation marks around groups of words and the search engine will look only for sites that contain all of those words in the exact order you’ve given. And you can combine this strategy with the other ways of limiting your search. Try “bottled water quality” (in quotation marks) health -teeth.

Marvin: 225,000. That’s a little better.

Prof: Now try adding what type of website you are looking for, maybe a .gov or an .edu. Try typing “bottled water quality” heath -teeth site:.edu

Marvin: Wow, under 6,000 results now.

Prof: Yes, a definite improvement. Sometimes you want to be careful though not to narrow it so far that you miss useful sources. You have to play around with your search terms to get to what you need. A bigger problem with Internet search engines, though, is that they won’t necessarily lead you to the sources considered most valuable for college writing.

Marvin: My professor said something about using peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals.

Prof: Professors will often want you to use such sources. Articles in scholarly journals are written by experts; and if a journal’s peer-reviewed, its articles have been screened by other experts (the authors’ peers) before being published.

Marvin: So that would make peer-reviewed articles pretty reliable. Where do I find them?

Prof: Google’s got a specialized search engine, Google Scholar, that will search for scholarly articles that might be useful. But often the best place is the college library’s bibliographic databases. 

To be continued. . .

Google Scholar

Google Scholar at scholar.google.com is Google’s academic search engine that searches across scholarly literature. It has extensive coverage, retrieving information from academic publishers, professional organizations, university repositories, professional websites, and government websites.

The benefits of searching within Google Scholar are numerous, but a search solely using Google Scholar will not be sufficient for your research, because non-scholarly and/or non-peer reviewed material may also appear in Google Scholar. You will also need to use library databases to research a topic/working thesis fully. Both Google Scholar and library databases have their own benefits.

Google Scholar accesses more government resources than available in library databases, as well as case law. One of the greatest features of Google Scholar is the “Cited by” link found below each search result. If you find one article you like, you can click on the link to find other articles that reference that same work.

Library databases allow you to limit your search to full-text, peer-reviewed, scholarly articles and to specify more information fields (subject headings, abstract, author, etc.) where you want your search terms found.

View the following video for a good introduction to using Google Scholar. Note that although the video references the University of Wisconsin, you can easily link to your own college’s library through the “settings” option in Google Scholar.

Click on the following examples to get a sense of how Google Scholar works.  You may also want to configure your settings to link to your own college’s library and try the search terms again, to see what’s available to you and how it can be accessed.

Google Scholar Search Results

Click on the links below to see how search results vary when using different search parameters.

caffeine health : A simple Google Scholar search for caffeine and health.

caffeine health coffee OR “green tea” OR “black tea” : Results of the search listed above, where the search specifies articles covering caffeine and health, and noting coffee, black tea, or green tea.

caffeine health author:”RR McCusker” : A search for articles on a topic by a specific author, Rachel R. McCusker.

caffeine health [2012-2016] : These results have been limited to those published from 2012-2016.

• Finding Sources - Intial Searching with Google Scholar. Revision and adaptation of the page Finding Sources at https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-englishcomposition1/chapter/text-finding-sources/ which is a revision and adaptation of sources listed below. Authored by : Susan Oaks. Provided by : Empire State College, SUNY OER Services. Project : College Writing. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Finding Sources. Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-englishcomposition1/chapter/text-finding-sources/ . Project : English Composition I. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Walk, Talk, Cook, Eat: A Guide to Using Sources. Authored by : Cynthia R. Haller. Provided by : Saylor. Located at : http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/writing-spaces-readings-on-writing-vol-2.pdf . Project : Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Vol. 2. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Google Tips and Tricks: Google Scholar. Provided by : The University of Rhode Island University Libraries. Located at : http://uri.libguides.com/c.php?g=42527&p=269108 . License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
• Making the Most of your Search: Google Scholar. Provided by : University of Texas at Arlington Libraries. Located at : http://libguides.uta.edu/c.php?g=472514&p=3232594 . License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
• image computer screen with books. Authored by : geralt. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/en/library-electronic-ebook-e-book-1666703/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
• video How to Use Google Scholar for Academic Research. Provided by : Nextgen Research Publication. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYI1eQTDSAA . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

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Search for EMU Dissertations in Esearch

This search finds theses and dissertations completed at EMU:

Finding EMU Dissertations and Theses

In addition to the Esearch search above, there are two places to look for dissertations and theses by EMU students: EMU's Digital Commons and a database from the company Proquest.

There are three links to Digital Commons below: two links show a list of dissertations by specific COE departments and the 3rd link goes to the full EMU Digital Commons which will also include Masters Theses from all three COE departments.

The fourth (last) link goes to a ProQuest database of EMU theses. Although there is overlap coverage between Digital Commons and ProQuest, each will have unique theses not found in the other. 

• Leadership & Counseling Dissertations in Digital Commons
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• Digital Commons @ EMU This link opens in a new window Digital showcase of scholarly and creative works by EMU students, faculty, and staff Subjects : Covers most subjects Info type : scholarly articles, theses, dissertations
• Eastern Michigan University Theses and Dissertations This link opens in a new window This has full text of EMU dissertations and theses. For years prior to 2011, it isn't possible to search by department in this database; however you can search by keyword or by advisor. To do this use the pulldown menu to change the search from "Anywhere except fulltext -- ALL" to "Advisor -- ADV".

Finding Dissertations and Theses Worldwide

If you know the name of a dissertation, one of the quickest ways to locate it might be to search the title in quotes in Google Scholar.

• Google Scholar with EMU Full Text This link opens in a new window Search for scholarly materials on any topic Info type: scholarly articles, books, research reports, theses, working papers, cited sources Access Tips: Use link above to get access to EMU subscriptions with Findtext+ links. If this link does not work and you receive an error message from Google then use this alternate link to Google Scholar and also set your Google Scholar preferences to show EMU library access links. Search Instruction: Google Scholar Video
• Dissertations & Theses Global Full Text This link opens in a new window Info type: full text dissertations and theses (1997- ), descriptions of dissertations and theses (1861- ).
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations - OATD This link opens in a new window Full text theses and dissertations from 600+ universities.
• NDLTD - Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations A very large free database of dissertations and masters theses worldwide. Often there is a link to the full text.
• EBSCOhost OpenDissertations (formerly American Doctoral Dissertations) This link opens in a new window Citations for theses and dissertations from 1902 to the present, sometimes with links to full text in repositories.
• EThOS "EThOS is the UK’s national thesis service which aims to maximise the visibility and availability of the UK’s doctoral research theses."
• DART-Europe E-theses Portal DART (Digital Archive of Research Theses)-Europe allows you to easily search over 360,000 dissertations from over 500 European universities.

Article Databases that include Dissertations

• ERIC This link opens in a new window Key source for Education articles and reports Info type: scholarly articles, professional articles, dissertations, ERIC documents Brief how to video: ERIC Basics Look up Subject terms: Thesaurus on ERIC.gov
• PsycINFO This link opens in a new window Subjects: Psychology, Education, Business, Communication, Linguistics, Social Work Info type: scholarly articles, book info, conference papers, dissertations How To: ProQuest Basics Locating Quantitative and Qualitative Articles in PsycINFO PsycINFO Quick Reference Guide
• ProQuest One Business This link opens in a new window Key source for business articles. Subjects: Accounting, Auditing, Business, Communications, Economics, Ed Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Health Admin, Hotel Restaurant Mgmt, Management, Public Admin, Technology Info type: scholarly articles, professional articles, magazine articles, news, reports, dissertations Brief Instruction Video: ProQuest Basics

Getting the Full Dissertation

Try first to look in Google Scholar and Dissertations & Theses Global Full Text  (above) for digital fulltext of a dissertation. Many universities are now posting dissertations in repositories (like Digital Commons). Google Scholar includes Digital Commons and other repositories in its search. If that doesn't work, you might also try a regular Google search.

An effective way to search for the dissertation in Google Scholar or Google is to place the title in quotes, followed by the author last name. Example search: "Self-Efficacy and Instructional Leadership" Helber

For older dissertations, you may need to try to interlibrary loan the dissertation. You can get an idea of whether the dissertation is at a library by searching OCLC WorldCat . Or go to the web site for the library of the university where the author did the dissertation. Unfortunately, sometimes dissertations are not available via interlibrary loan. As a last resort, you may be able to purchase dissertations from ProQuest--see DissertationExpress  link below.

• WorldCat (via FirstSearch) This link opens in a new window Search for materials in libraries worldwide Info type: book info, library holdings
• Interlibrary Loan
• Dissertation Express For buying dissertations.
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The Role of Google Scholar in Evidence Reviews and Its Applicability to Grey Literature Searching

Neal robert haddaway.

1 MISTRA EviEM, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden

Alexandra Mary Collins

2 Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom

3 Department for Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs, London, United Kingdom

Deborah Coughlin

4 Department for Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom

Stuart Kirk

5 Environment Agency, London, United Kingdom

Conceived and designed the experiments: NH. Performed the experiments: NH AC. Analyzed the data: NH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: NH. Wrote the paper: NH AC DC SK.

Associated Data

All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

Google Scholar (GS), a commonly used web-based academic search engine, catalogues between 2 and 100 million records of both academic and grey literature (articles not formally published by commercial academic publishers). Google Scholar collates results from across the internet and is free to use. As a result it has received considerable attention as a method for searching for literature, particularly in searches for grey literature, as required by systematic reviews. The reliance on GS as a standalone resource has been greatly debated, however, and its efficacy in grey literature searching has not yet been investigated. Using systematic review case studies from environmental science, we investigated the utility of GS in systematic reviews and in searches for grey literature. Our findings show that GS results contain moderate amounts of grey literature, with the majority found on average at page 80. We also found that, when searched for specifically, the majority of literature identified using Web of Science was also found using GS. However, our findings showed moderate/poor overlap in results when similar search strings were used in Web of Science and GS (10–67%), and that GS missed some important literature in five of six case studies. Furthermore, a general GS search failed to find any grey literature from a case study that involved manual searching of organisations’ websites. If used in systematic reviews for grey literature, we recommend that searches of article titles focus on the first 200 to 300 results. We conclude that whilst Google Scholar can find much grey literature and specific, known studies, it should not be used alone for systematic review searches. Rather, it forms a powerful addition to other traditional search methods. In addition, we advocate the use of tools to transparently document and catalogue GS search results to maintain high levels of transparency and the ability to be updated, critical to systematic reviews.

Introduction

Searching for information is an integral part of research. Over 11,500 journals are catalogued by Journal Citation Reports ( http://thomsonreuters.com/journal-citation-reports/ ), and the volume of published scientific research is growing at an ever-increasing rate [ 1 , 2 ]. Scientists must sift through this information to find relevant research, and do so today most commonly by using online citation databases (e.g. Web of Science) and search engines (e.g. Google Scholar). Just as the number of academic articles and journals is steadily increasing, so too are the number of citation databases.

A citation database is a set of citations that can be searched using an online tool, for example Web of Science ( https://webofknowledge.com/ ). These databases typically charge subscription fees for access to the database that do not cover the cost of access to the full text of the research articles themselves. Generally these databases selectively catalogue citations according to a predefined list of journals, publishers or subject areas. Several free-to-use services have recently appeared that search for citations on the internet, most notably Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search. These search engines do not store citations within a specific database, instead they regularly ‘crawl’ the internet for information that appears to be a citation. Some key characteristics of databases and search engines are compared in Table 1 .

According to Thomson Reuters, the Web of Science Core Collections citation database contains almost 50 million research records ( http://wokinfo.com/citationconnection/realfacts/ ; February 2015), with Microsoft Academic Search reporting to catalogue in excess of 45 million records as of January 2013 ( http://academic.research.microsoft.com/About/help.htm#9 ). Google Scholar does not report the volume of citations identifiable via their search facility, although attempts have been made to estimate this that suggest between 1.8 million [ 3 ] and 100 million records [ 4 ] are identifiable.

“Grey literature” is the term given to describe documents not published by commercial publishers, and it may form a vital component of evidence reviews such as systematic reviews and systematic maps [ 5 ], rapid evidence assessments [ 6 ] and synopses [ 7 ]. Grey literature includes academic theses, organisation reports, government papers, etc. and may prove highly influential in syntheses, despite not being formally published in the same way as traditional academic literature e.g. [ 8 ]. Considerable efforts are typically required within systematic reviews to search for grey literature in an attempt to include practitioner-held data and also account for possible publication bias [ 5 , 9 ]. Publication bias is the tendency for significant, positive research to be more likely to be published than non-significant or negative research, leading to an increased likelihood of overestimating effect sizes in meta-analyses and other syntheses [ 10 ]. The inclusion of grey literature is a central tenet of systematic review methodology, which aims to include all available documented evidence and reduce susceptibility to bias.

Academic citation databases are often the first port of call for researchers looking for information. However, access to databases is often expensive; some costing c. £100,000 per annum for organisations of up to 100 employees. Increasingly, researchers are using academic citation search engines to find information (Haddaway, unpublished data). Academic citation search engines appear to represent an attractive alternative to costly citation databases, cataloguing research almost immediately and not restricting results to certain journals, publishers or subject categories. Search engines are particularly attractive to systematic reviewers, since they have the potential to be used to search for grey literature quickly and simply using one search facility rather than a plethora of individual websites [ 5 ].

There is on-going debate regarding the utility of Google Scholar as an academic resource e.g. [ 11 , 12 ], but also as a replacement for traditional academic citation databases and in searches for grey literature in systematic reviews [ 13 , 14 ]. Google Scholar represents an attractive resource for researchers, since it is free-to-use, appears to catalogue vast numbers of academic articles, allows citations to be exported individually, and also provides citation tracking (although see criticism of citation tracking by Delgado Lopez-Cozar et al. [ 15 ]). Google Scholar is also potentially useful in systematic reviews, since reliance on just one such platform for searches would: i) offer resource efficiency, ii) offer cost efficiency, iii) allow rapid linking to full texts, iv) provide access to a substantial body of grey literature as well as academic literature, and v) be compatible with new methods for downloading citations in bulk that would allow for a very transparent approach to searching [ 16 ].

Previous research has shown that articles identified within systematic reviews are identifiable using Google Scholar [ 13 ]. However, other authors have suggested that this does not make Google Scholar an appropriate replacement for academic citation databases, as, in practice, there are considerable limitations in the search facility relative to those of academic databases [ 11 ], and there is on-going debate about Google Scholar’s place in research [ 12 ]. Shultz [ 17 ] listed many limitations that have been attributed to Google Scholar, including that the service permits use of only basic Boolean operators in search strings, which are limited to 256 characters, and that users cannot sort results (although some of the other cited disadvantages have been corrected in recent updates). Two further limitations to the use of Google Scholar in academic searches are the inability to directly export results in bulk as citations (although a limited number of individual citations can be extracted within a set time period) and the display of only the first 1,000 search records with no details of the means by which they are ordered.

Web-based academic search engines, such as Google Scholar, are often used within secondary syntheses (i.e. literature reviews, meta-analyses and systematic reviews). Systematic reviews typically screen the first 50 to 100 search records within Google Scholar e.g. [ 18 , 19 , 20 ], sometimes restricting searches to title rather than full-text searches e.g. [ 21 ]. Such activities are not themselves evidence-based, however. Little is known about how these results are ordered, or what proportion of search results are traditional academic relative to grey literature. Furthermore, this small degree of screening (50 to 100 records) is a very small proportion of the volume of literature found through other sources (often 10s of thousands of records).

Google Scholar has improved greatly in recent iterations; evident from early critiques of the service relative to academic citation databases that cite problems that no longer exist e.g. [ 22 , 23 ]. Whilst the debate on the usefulness of Google Scholar in academic activities has continued in recent years, some improvements to the service offer unequivocal utility; for example, Shariff et al. [ 24 ] found that Google Scholar provided access to almost three times as many articles free of charge than PubMed (14 and 5%, respectively).

Any recommendations in systematic review guidance that are made regarding the allocation of greater resources to the use of academic search engines, such as Google Scholar, should be based on knowledge that such resources are worthwhile, and that academic search engines provide meaningful sources of evidence, and do not correspond to wasted effort.

Here, we describe a study investigating the use of Google Scholar as a source of research literature to help answer the following questions:

• What proportion of Google Scholar search results is academic literature and what proportion grey literature, and how does this vary between different topics?
• How much overlap is there between the results obtained from Google Scholar and those obtained from Web of Science?
• What proportion of Google Scholar and Web of Science search results are duplicates and what causes this duplication ?
• Are articles included in previous environmental systematic reviews identifiable by using Google Scholar alone?
• Is Google Scholar an effective means of finding grey literature relative to that identified from hand searches of organisational websites?

Seven published systematic reviews were used as case studies [ 20 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ] (see Table 2 ). These reviews were chosen as they covered a diverse range of topics in environmental management and conservation, and included interdisciplinary elements relevant to public health, social sciences and molecular biology. The importance and types of grey literature vary between subjects, and a diversity of topics is necessary for any assessment of the utility of a grey literature search tool. The search strings used herein were either taken directly from the string used in Google Scholar in each systematic review’s methods or were based on the review’s academic search string where Google Scholar was not originally searched. Search results in Google Scholar were performed both at “full text” (i.e. the entire full text of each document was searched for the specified terms) and “title” (i.e. only the title of each document was searched for the specified terms) level using the advanced search facility (see https://scholar.google.se/intl/en/scholar/help.html#searching for further details). Searches included patents and citations. Since Google Scholar displays a maximum of 1,000 search results this was the maximum number of citations that could be extracted using the specially developed method described below.

Searches were performed on 06/02/15. Web of Science includes the following databases as part of the MISTRA EviEM subscription; KCI-Korean Journal Database, SciELO Citation Index and Web of Sciences Core Collection.

1. What proportion of Google Scholar search results is grey literature?

A download manager (DownThemAll!; http://www.downthemall.net ) and web-scraping programme (Import.io; http://www.import.io ) were used to download each page of search results (to a maximum of 100 pages; 1000 results) and then extract citations as patterned data from the locally stored HTML files into a database. Two databases (one for the title only search and one for the full text search) for each of the 7 systematic reviews were created, each holding up to 1,000 Google Scholar citations (see S1 File ).

Exported citations were assessed and categorised by NRH and AMC as one of the following types of literature:

• ‘Black’–peer-reviewed articles published in academic journals
• ‘Book’–monographs or complete books produced by commercial publishers
• ‘Book chapter’–chapters within books produced by commercial publishers
• ‘Patent’–registered patents and patent applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
• ‘Thesis’–dissertations from postgraduate degrees (master’s and doctorates)
• ‘Conference’–presentations, abstracts, posters and proceedings from conferences, workshops, meetings, congresses, symposia and colloquia
• ‘Other’–all other literature that may or may not be peer-reviewed, including; reports, working papers, self-published books, etc.
• ‘Unclear’–any search record that could not be categorised according to the above classification (ambiguous citations were discussed by the reviewers and classed as ‘unclear’ if no consensus could be reached due to limited information).

Book chapters are a subcategory of books but have been separated for additional clarity. These categories have been chosen because they reflect the type of information returned by Web of Science (‘black’ literature) and Google Scholar (all literature). The categories also reflect the emergent classifications that were possible based on information in the citations and any associated descriptions.

For each search type (title or full text) the proportion of literature types across the search results was summarised per page of results to assess the relative location of the types within the results.

2. How much overlap is there between Google Scholar and Web of Science?

For each of the 7 systematic review case studies title and full text searches were performed in Google Scholar and Web of Science (25/01/2015) and citation records extracted (all records for Web of Science or the first 1,000 for Google Scholar). Full text search results were not extracted for SR4 since over 47,000 records were returned, which was deemed too expansive for this assessment. The search results were then compared using the fuzzy duplicate identification add-in for Excel described below to investigate the degree of overlap between Web of Science and the first 1,000 Google Scholar search results.

3. What proportion of Google Scholar and Web of Science search results are duplicates and what causes this duplication?

Duplicate records are multiple citations that refer to the same article. They are disadvantageous in search results since they do not represent truly unique records and require time and resources for processing. Duplicates also lead to a false estimation of the size of search results: depending on the level of duplication there may be a significant deviation from the true size of search results. The fourteen databases from the 7 case study systematic reviews described above were screened for Google Scholar duplicates using the Excel Fuzzy Duplicate Finder add-in ( https://www.ablebits.com/excel-find-similar/ ) set to find up to 10 character differences between record titles. Potential duplicates were then manually assessed and reasons for duplication (e.g. spelling mistakes or grammatical differences) were recorded.

Searches were performed using Web of Science (using Bangor University’s subscription consisting of Biological Abstracts, MEDLINE, SciELO, Web of Science Core Collections and Zoological Record) using the same 7 search strings used with the above case studies in Google Scholar for topic words. The first 1,000 search results were extracted and assessed for duplicates on title using the Fuzzy Duplicate Finder as described above. Search results were extracted for records ordered both by relevance and by publication date (newest first), with the exception of SR2, SR5 and SR7, where totals of 230, 1,058 and 1,071 records respectively (all returned) were obtained and extracted in full.

4. Are articles included in previous environmental systematic reviews identifiable using Google Scholar?

In order to examine the coverage of Google Scholar in relation to studies included in environmental management systematic reviews, the lists of included articles following full text assessment were extracted from six reviews (four SRs described in Table 2 ; SR1, SR4, SR5, SR6 and two additional reviews; [ 8 , 31 ]) and each record’s title was searched for using Google Scholar. The option in Google Scholar to include citations was selected. Where titles were not found immediately, quotation marks were used, followed by partial removal of the title where possible typographical errors or punctuation variations might cause a record not to be found. Where records were identified as citations (i.e. Google Scholar found a reference within the reference list of another article) this was also recorded. In addition, references from the final lists of included article for three systematic reviews (SR1, SR4, SR6) were searched for in Web of Science as described for Google Scholar, above.

5. Is Google Scholar an effective means of finding grey literature identified from hand searches of organisational websites?

For another systematic review search string (SR5, Table 2 ) the 84 articles that were identified during searches for grey literature in the published review [ 28 ] from 16 organisational web sites (see S1 Table ) were used to test the ability of Google Scholar to find relevant grey literature using a single search string. The 84 articles were checked against the exported search results for both title and full text searches in Google Scholar (see Methods Section 1 above). The 84 articles were then screened in Google Scholar individually to assess whether they were included in the search engine’s coverage.

1. What proportion of Google Scholar search results is grey literature

Between 8 and 39% of full text search results from Google Scholar were classed as grey literature (mean ± SD: 19% ± 11), and between 8 and 64% of title search results (40% ± 17). Fig 1 displays search results by grey literature category, showing a greater percentage of grey literature than academic literature in title search results (43.0%) than full text results (18.9%). Conference proceedings, theses and “other” grey literature (i.e. reports and white-papers) accounted for the increase in the proportion of grey literature in title searches relative to full text searches. Theses formed a particularly small proportion of the full text search results across all case studies (1.3%), but formed a larger proportion of title search results (6.4%). Similarly, conference proceedings were less common in full text search results (3.2%) than title search results (15.3%). The proportion of patents, book chapters and books was similar in full text and title searches (0.2 and 0.3; 1.7 and 2.5; 4.2 and 2.8% respectively).

When examining the location of literature categories across search results (see S1 Fig ) several patterns emerge. “Peak” grey literature content (i.e. the point at which the volume of grey literature per page of search results was at its highest and where the bulk of grey literature is found) occurred on average at page 80 (±15 (SD)) for full text results, whilst it occurred at page 35 (± 25 (SD)) for title results. Before these points in the search results grey literature content was low in relative terms. For the majority of the case studies it was not until page 20 to 30 that grey literature formed a majority of each page of search results.

Google Scholar demonstrated modest overlap with Web of Science title searches: this overlap ranged from 10 to 67% of the total results in Web of Science ( Table 3 ). The overlap was highly variable between subjects, with reviews on marine protected area efficacy and terrestrial protected area socioeconomic impacts demonstrating the lowest overlap (17.1 and 10.3% respectively). Two case study title searches returned more than the viewable limit of 1,000 search results in Google Scholar (SR1 and SR4) and so only the first 1,000 could be extracted.

See Table 2 for case study explanations.

Full text search results from Google Scholar demonstrated low overlap with Web of Science results ( Table 4 ), ranging from 0.2 to 19.8% of the total Web of Science results.

n/a corresponds to search results that were too voluminous to download in full. See Table 2 for case study explanations.

3. What proportion of Google Scholar and Web of Science search results are duplicates and how do these duplicates come about?

Duplication rates (i.e. the percentage of total results that are duplicate records) for Google Scholar and Web of Science are shown in Table 5 and range from 0.00 to 2.93%. Rates of duplication are substantially higher within Google Scholar than Web of Science, and rates are far higher in title searches within Google Scholar than full text searches ( Table 6 ), although this is quite variable between the 7 case studies (1.0 to 4.8%%).

Numbers in parentheses correspond to the standard deviations of the individual case study duplication rates. Sample size refers to the number of search records in total, followed by the number of independent search strings (i.e. the number of case studies investigated).

Duplication rates are assessed for up to 1,000 search records (or the total number where less than c. 1,300). For Web of Science the full text results were ordered by publication date (newest first) and relevance where more than 1,000 results were returned. Numbers are duplication rate (%) followed by total search records in parentheses.

Duplicates appear to have arisen for a range of reasons. First, typographical errors introduced by manual transcription were found in both Google Scholar (15% of title records) and Web of Science. For example, the sole example of a duplicate from Web of Science is that of the two records that differ only in the spelling of the word ‘Goukamma’ (or Goukarmma) in the following title: “A change of the seaward boundary of Goukamma Marine Protected Area could increase conservation and fishery benefits”. Differences in formatting and punctuation are a subset of typographical errors and corresponded to 18% of title level duplicates. Second, capitalisation causes duplication in Google Scholar, and was responsible for 36% of title level duplicates. Third, incomplete titles (i.e. some missing words) were responsible for 15% of title level duplicates. Fourth, automated text detection (i.e. when scanning documents digitally) was responsible for 3% of title level duplicates. Fifth, Google Scholar also scans for citations within references of selected included literature, and the presence of both these citations and the original articles themselves was responsible for 13% of title level duplication.

Many of the included articles from the six published systematic review case studies were identified when searching for those articles specifically in Google Scholar ( Table 7 ). However, a significant proportion of studies in one review [ 31 ] were not found at all using Google Scholar (31.5%). Other reviews were better represented by Google Scholar coverage (94.3 to 100% of studies). Only one review had an included article list that was fully covered by Google Scholar, the review with the smallest evidence base of only 37 studies [ 31 ]. For those reviews where studies were not identified by Google Scholar, a further search was performed for these missing studies in Web of Science ( Table 7 ), which demonstrated that some of these studies (6 studies from 2 case study reviews) were catalogued by Web of Science.

Records identified as citations are found only within reference lists of other articles (their existence is not verified by the presence of a publisher version or full text article, unlike hyperlinked citations).

1 For those articles not found using Google Scholar, Web of Science searches were carried out using Bangor University subscription (Biological Abstracts, MEDLINE, SciELO Citation Index, Web of Science Core Collections, Zoological Record).

Google Scholar search results that were available only as citations (i.e. obtained from the reference lists of other search results) constituted between 0 and 15.2% of identified results. Citations typically do not lead to web pages that provide additional information and cannot therefore be verified manually by users.

When searching specifically for individual articles, Google Scholar catalogued a larger proportion of articles than Web of Science (% of total in Google Scholar / % of total in Web of Science: SR1, 98.3/96.7; SR4, 94.3/83.9; SR6, 99.4/89.7).

None of the 84 grey literature articles identified by SR5 [ 28 ] were found within the exported Google Scholar search results (68 total records from title searches and 1,000 of a total 49,700 records from full text searches). However, when searched for specifically 61 of the 84 articles were identified by Google Scholar.

This paper set out to investigate the role of Google Scholar in searches for academic and grey literature in systematic and other literature reviews. There is much interest in Google Scholar due to its free-to-use interface, apparent comprehensiveness e.g. [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ], and application within systematic reviews [ 16 ]. However, previous studies have disagreed on whether the service could be used as a standalone resource e.g. [ 11 , 12 ]. Our study enables recommendations to be made for the use of Google Scholar in systematic searches for academic and grey literature, particularly in systematic reviews.

Our results show that Google Scholar is indeed a useful platform for searching for environmental science grey literature that would benefit researchers such as systematic reviewers, agreeing with previous research in medicine [ 32 , 33 ]. Our investigations also demonstrate that more grey literature is returned in title searches than full text searches (43% relative to 19%, respectively), slightly more than previously found in an investigation of full text searching alone in an early version of Google Scholar (13% of total results; [ 17 ]). The grey literature returned by Google Scholar may be seen by some as disadvantageous given its perceived lack of verification (through formal academic peer-review), particularly where researchers are looking for purely traditional academic evidence. However, this may be particularly useful for those seeking evidence from across academic and grey literature domains; for example, those wishing to minimise the risk of publication bias (the over-representation of significant research in academic publications [ 34 ]).

We found that the greatest volume of grey literature in searches occurs at around page 35 for title searches. This finding indicates that researchers, including systematic reviewers, using Google Scholar as a source of grey literature should revise the current common practice of searching the first 50–100 results (5–10 pages) in favour of a more extensive search that looks further into the records returned. Conversely, those wishing to use title searching for purely academic literature should focus on the first 300 results to reduce the proportion of grey literature in their search results.

The grey literature returned in the 7 systematic review case studies examined herein mostly consisted of “other” grey literature and conference proceedings; i.e. white papers and organisational reports. Reports and white papers may prove particularly useful for secondary syntheses, since they may often represent resources that are commissioned by policy and practice decision-makers. Conference proceedings typically represent academic works that have not been formally published in commercial academic journals: such articles may also provide useful evidence for reviewers, particularly systematic reviewers. Academic theses were more common in title searches in Google Scholar, whilst books were more common in full text searches. Theses can provide a vital source of grey literature [ 35 ], research that never makes it into the public domain through academic publications. It is worth noting that whilst academic peer-review is not a guarantee of rigour, research that has not been through formal academic peer-review should be carefully appraised before being integrated into syntheses such as systematic reviews [ 5 ]. Google Scholar may thus prove to be a useful resource in addition to dedicated databases of theses (e.g. DART-Europe; http://www.dart-europe.eu/basic-search.php ) and other grey literature repositories (e.g. ProceedingsFirst; https://www.oclc.org/support/services/firstsearch/documentation/dbdetails/details/Proceeding.en.html ).

Surprisingly, we found relatively little overlap between Google Scholar and Web of Science (10–67% of WoS results were returned using searches in Google Scholar using title searches). For the largest set of results (SR4) only 17% of WoS records were returned in the viewable results in Google Scholar (restricted to the first 1,000 records). However, the actual number of returned results in Google Scholar was 4,310, with only the first 1,000 being viewable due to the limitations of Google Scholar. Assuming an even distribution of overlapping studies across these results we might expect a modest 73% coverage in total (calculated by applying a consistent rate of 17% from the first 1,000 to the full set of 4,310 search records). The limitations of viewable results in Google Scholar make an assessment of overlap impossible when the number of results is greater than 1,000. The case study SR1 only slightly exceeded the viewable limit of 1,000 studies and identified an overlap of 38%, however.

The relatively low overlap between the two services demonstrates that Google Scholar is not a suitable replacement for traditional academic searches: although its results are greater than those in Web of Science, the majority of Web of Science search results are not returned by Google Scholar. However, Google Scholar is a useful addition to traditional database searching, since a large body of search records was returned for each case study that did not overlap, potentially increasing the coverage of any multi-database search, such as those carried out in systematic reviews.

Duplicates within citation databases are disadvantageous because they represent false records. Although the individual reference may be correct, its presence in the database contributes to the number of results. Where large numbers of references must be screened manually, as in systematic reviews, duplicates may also represent a waste of resources where they are not automatically detectable. Duplication rates in Web of Science were very low (0–0.05%), but notably higher in Google Scholar (1–5%). Duplication in Google Scholar occurred as a result of differences in formatting, punctuation, capitalisation, incomplete records, and mistakes during automated scanning and population of the search records. The sensitivity of Google Scholar searches comes at a cost, since identical records are identified as unique references. This may not be a significant problem for small-scale searches, but a 5% duplication rate represents a substantial waste of resources in a systematic review where tens of thousands of titles must be screened manually.

Gehano et al. [ 13 ] found that Google Scholar was able to identify all 738 articles from across 29 systematic reviews in medicine, and concluded that it could be used as a standalone resource in systematic reviews, stating that “if the authors of the 29 systematic reviews had used only GS, no reference would have been missed”. As pointed out by other researchers e.g. [ 14 ], this conclusion is incorrect, since the ability to find specific, known references does not equate to an ability to return these references using a search strategy as might be conducted within a systematic review: most importantly, the relevant articles may be returned outside of the viewable 1,000 records. Giustini and Boulos [ 14 ] found that 5% of studies from a systematic review could not be identified using specific searches in Google Scholar, whilst Boeker et al. [ 11 ] found that up to 34% of studies from 14 systematic reviews were missed.

Google Scholar was able to find much of the existing literature included within the systematic review case studies in our investigations, and indeed found more than Web of Science in the three case studies examined. As such, Google Scholar provides a powerful tool for identifying articles that are already known to exist (for example, when looking for a citation or access to a full text document). In addition, the search engine was also able to identify large amounts of potentially relevant grey literature. However, some important evidence was not identified at all by Google Scholar (31.5% in one case study), meaning that the review may have come to a very different conclusion if it had relied solely on Google Scholar. Similarly, Web of Science alone is insufficient to identify all relevant literature. As described above, Google Scholar may provide a useful source of evidence in addition to traditional academic databases, but it should not be used as a standalone resource in evidence-gathering exercises such as systematic reviews.

Google Scholar was able to identify a large proportion of the grey literature found in one case study through hand searching of organisational websites (61 of 84 articles). However, 23 articles could not be found using the search engine. Furthermore, the 61 articles found were not returned when using a typical systematic review-style search string. Together, these factors demonstrate that Google Scholar is a useful resource in addition to hand searching of organisational websites, returning a large volume of potentially relevant information, but that it should not be used as a standalone resource for grey literature searching, since some vital information is missed. Hand searching, as recommended by the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence Guidelines in Systematic Reviews [ 5 ], is restricted only to those websites included in an a priori protocol. Google Scholar exhaustively searches the internet for studies, however, and whilst it may be more coarse than fine-level hand searching (i.e. missing studies), the addition of a Google Scholar search targeting grey literature would increase comprehensiveness without giving cause for concern with relation to any systematic bias. However, since the algorithms that order search results are not disclosed, a substantial proportion of search results should be examined.

Other Considerations

As mentioned above, only the first 1,000 search results can be viewed in Google Scholar, and the order in which results are returned is not disclosed. Furthermore, the ‘advanced’ search facility supports only very basic Boolean logic, accepting only one set of ‘OR’ or ‘AND’ arguments, not both. In addition, variations in the way that subscript and superscript text, for example with chemical symbols, are displayed and recognised mean that poor matching occurs during searches where these characters form part of article titles. Finally, Google Scholar has a low threshold for repetitive activity that triggers an automated block to a user’s IP address (in our experience the export of approximately 180 citations or 180 individual searches). Thankfully this can be readily circumvented with the use of IP-mirroring software such as Hola ( https://hola.org/ ), although care should be taken when systematically accessing Google Scholar to ensure the terms of use are not violated.

Conclusions

We have provided evidence that Google Scholar is a powerful tool for finding specific literature, but that it cannot be a replacement for traditional academic citation databases, nor can it replace hand-searching for grey literature. The limitations of the number of search results displayed, the incomplete Boolean operation of the advanced search facility, and the non-disclosure of the algorithm by which search results are ordered mean that Google Scholar is not a transparent search facility. Moreover, the high proportion of grey literature that is missed by Google Scholar mean that it is not a viable alternative to hand searching for grey literature as a stand-alone tool. Despite this, Google Scholar is able to identify a large body of additional grey literature in excess of that found by either traditional academic citation databases or grey literature identification methods. These factors make Google Scholar an attractive supplement to hand searching, further increasing comprehensiveness of searches for evidence.

We also note that the development of tools to take snapshots of search results from Google Scholar and extract these results as citations can significantly increase the efficiency and transparency of using Google Scholar (i.e. beyond the arbitrary first 50 search results currently favoured in many systematic reviews).

Several recommendations can be made based on our findings for those wishing to use Google Scholar as a resource for research evidence:

• 1. Finding : Google Scholar is capable of identifying the majority of evidence in the systematic review case studies examined when searching specifically for known articles.
• Recommendation : Google Scholar is a powerful, free-to-use tool that can be recommended if looking for specific research studies.
• 2. Finding : Google Scholar is not capable of identifying all relevant evidence identified in the systematic review case studies examined, missing some vital information (as did Web of Science).
• Recommendation : Google Scholar (and Web of Science) should not be used as standalone resources for finding evidence as part of comprehensive searching activities, such as systematic reviews.
• 3. Finding: Substantially more grey literature is found using title searches in Google Scholar than full text searches.
• Recommendation: If looking for grey literature, reviewers should consider using title searches. If looking for academic literature title searches will yield a great deal of unsuitable information.
• 4. Finding: Title level searches yield more conference proceedings, theses and ‘other’ grey literature.
• Recommendation: Title level searches may be particularly useful in identifying as yet unpublished academic research grey literature as well as organisational reports and government papers [ 9 ]
• 5. Finding: The majority of grey literature begins to appear after approximately 20 to 30 pages of results.
• Recommendation: If looking for grey literature the results should be screened well beyond the 20 th page.

In summary, we find Google Scholar to be a useful supplement in searches for evidence, particularly grey literature so long as its limitations are recognised. We recommend that the arbitrary assessment of the first 50 search results from Google Scholar, frequently undertaken in systematic reviews, should be replaced with the practice of recording snapshots of all viewable search results: i.e. the first 1,000 records. This change in practice could significantly improve both the transparency and coverage of systematic reviews, especially with respect to their grey literature components.

Supporting Information

Search results by page for 7 case studies (see Table 2 for descriptions), for a) full text and b) title searches. Results displayed are for the total number of extractable records in Google Scholar.

Database of Google Scholar full text and title searches for 7 case study systematic reviews.

List of organisations yielding potentially relevant evidence for a systematic review on the human wellbeing impacts of terrestrial protected areas.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Helen Bayliss and Beth Hall for discussion of the topic. AMC acknowledges a Policy Placement Fellowship funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, the UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency. Some ideas for this project were prompted by a forthcoming Defra research project (WT1552).

Funding Statement

AMC acknowledges a Policy Placement Fellowship funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, the UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency. Some ideas for this project were prompted by a forthcoming Defra research project (WT1552). NH was hosted at Bangor University ( http://www.bangor.ac.uk/ ).

Data Availability

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Citation Databases

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• Google Scholar
• Research Impact and Metrics

Introduction to Google Scholar

Google Scholar is the largest citation search-base in the world, though it suffers from some difficulties it is the most widely used of all such search engines. The reason for this is that author profiles in Google Scholar tend to index the entirety of an author’s output. The database is maintained by a powerful algorithm which searches the entire internet for citations, documents, and other research output. However, not all of the material which can be found in Google Scholar is peer-reviewed so remember that it is up to you to be a critical consumer of information. Google Scholar cannot sort by research field or type, browse by title, and cannot limit search results (except for by year).

Uses for Researchers

There are many use cases of Google Scholar for researchers, the most obvious cases are literature reviews and making note of research trends. Searching Google Scholar is easy, and by making use of some of the tips below you will be able to narrow your search results.

Search Tips

Here are some easy search tips for using Google Scholar.

Opening Advanced search: to open advanced search navigate to the three lines at the top left of the google scholar home page, click on that and then click on advanced search.

Using “Boolean Operators” such as ‘AND’ as well as ‘OR’ can allow you to search for things which include specific words

Using the command “intitle:” we can do an in title search, so for example “Intitle: “Romanitas”     Roman”' will search for articles with “Romanitas” in the title and the word “Roman” in the text of the article. This can help you to find articles with specific content.

Cited by References search is a powerful tool which allows you to search for articles that have cited a particular article. Search for an article and then click “cited by” under the entry.

Setting library links can be done by clicking “settings”, clicking on “library links” and then searching for “Purdue”, and finally clicking “save”. This will allow you to access materials you find on Google Scholar directly from your searches

Metrics in Google Scholar

Google Scholar maintains researcher level profiles which can be created or claimed. If you are already a prolific author, you might have an algorithmically generated profile already. These can be claimed, but others will find that they can create a profile themselves. Either way, once you have done this you can begin to access personalized metrics such as h-index and citations.

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• Last Edited: Apr 11, 2024 9:42 AM
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