How to Use Google Scholar for Research

How to Use Google Scholar for Research

Google Scholar is a dedicated search engine specifically designed by Google to find academic and scholarly publications. You can find in-depth results such as books, journal articles, dissertations, and abstracts from a variety of areas.

So, if you’re in urgent need of reciting reliable sources in a research paper, learning how to use Google Scholar can go a long way. Let’s jump right in!

How to Use Google Scholar for Research

Now you can increase the overall standard of your assignment or dissertation by inserting credible sources to show your work and getting an A+ on your work!

1. Visit the official website of Google Scholar.

2. Type in the keyword of your topic and hit Enter.

3. Click on your preferred date of published work under Any time from the left menu.

4. Click on Custom range… and enter the range of dates to add your preferred dates and select Search.

5. Click on Sort by relevance from the left menu to get articles with reviews.

6. Put a tick on Include patents to get only the copyrighted research papers.

7. Put a tick on Include citations to get articles that have credential links for their research.

This way you can get a good overview of how to use Google Scholar to conduct a basic search of a topic.

How Can I Search on Google Scholar with Relevant Keywords?

Google Scholar does not work like a normal search engine. You cannot type a long sentence and get exact answers. Therefore, it is necessary to understand how to use keywords to get proper results. Here are some tips:

  • Open Google Scholar and type in AND in between two keywords to get proper results on both together. For example, instead of typing ion mobility or mass spectrometry, write ion mobility and mass spectrometry.
  • To get papers with all your keywords, especially if they are more than 2 words, use quotation marks on your keywords. For example, if you normally search drift tube ion mobility spectrometry, you will get results having certain words but not altogether. However, if you use quotations over these keywords, you will get results only with the exact phrase.

How to Use Advanced Search in Google Scholar

Follow the steps below to see how you can make proper use of the Advanced search feature on Google Scholar:

1. Open Google Scholar and click on the three dots at the top left corner of the page.

2. Select Advanced search.

3. Under Find articles with all the words, enter the most important keywords.

4. Under with the exact phrase, enter keywords that must be used together.

5. Under with at least one of the words, enter one important keyword.

6. Under without the words, enter keywords that are not relevant but are often used generally with the topic.

7. Choose your option between anywhere in the article or in the title of the article under where my words occur.

8. Enter a specific author under Return articles authored by.

9. Enter the name of a magazine or university from which an article was published under Return articles published in.

10. Enter the date range from when the article was published under Return articles dated between.

11. Finally, click on the search icon.

Now you will only get the results based on your specific inputs in Advanced search. We hope our guide helped you use Google Scholar to research academic papers.