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).
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.
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
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.