In fact, even before the internet existed, it was quite common to come across the following scenario: Libraries full of students and college students, who pored for hours on books and encyclopedias in order to find content relevant to their research at school, college or other degrees. Google Scholar
Gathering reference material for the preparation of theses, scientific articles, abstracts and dissertations was laborious, time-consuming and, therefore, required a lot of patience from academics.
With the internet, the lives of students and academics have become easier. After all, just typing a term into a Google search field brings up thousands of results.
But, given the great flow of information that the internet makes available to us, we must also understand that not all information we find online is reliable.
We need to know how to find the right and relevant sources for our research.
So, sites like Wikipedia do not guarantee the quality and origin of information and, therefore, should be avoided in education.
Google Scholar, on the other hand, can be an excellent source of research for your academic works, if you know how to use it in the best way, of course!
Of course, you won’t get lost in the information. It is still necessary to be careful with the verification of research sources and, above all, to avoid practices such as plagiarism . But there is no doubt that the search with Google Scholar is much more refined.
Google Scholar is a Google search service aimed especially at students, researchers, scientists, university students and the curious.
The tool works as a repository of theses, scientific articles, abstracts, monographs, dissertations and books. In other words, it is a site for researching articles and references for scientific works.
The search engine indexes content from open access databases such as Scielo , Altametric and Wiley or from materials that are available on Google Books .
Google Scholar even allows users to add their scientific productions, which is excellent for those who want to add relevance to their name or build a career in the scientific community.
Have you ever written a scientific article? Have questions about where to start? Be sure to download our e-book with valuable tips to get started in scientific production.
Google Scholar works in a very similar way to “normal” Google (that is, the one we are already used to and use in our daily lives). So, you probably already know how to search Google Scholar.
In the default configuration, after the user enters the subject or keyword of interest in the search field, the results are shown based on a criterion of relevance.
Thus, aspects such as the number of citations that the work received, the author, the text itself, the place where it was published and the reputation of the research are taken into account.
That’s why it’s so important that your publication has the DOI code . In addition to helping to locate your work, it also counts the mentions made to the search.
Here’s an example of relevance based on the number of citations:
However, as can be seen in this same example, you can choose not to use the tool’s default configuration and filter the search results.
On the left side of the screen, you can find articles by date, language and specific period.
There is also the option to create an alert on the site in case new publications that meet your search criteria are indexed to the Google Scholar database.
For this, do not forget to create your own account on the platform (if you use Gmail , the accounts will be linked, but do not forget to complete the registration information).
4 Google Scholar features you need to know
1. Google Scholar’s “My Library” function
Users logged into the tool have the benefit of creating their own library with content of interest to them.
Thus, you can save content to be read later, for example. To save an article, simply click on the “star” icon below each article.
Some articles are also available in the PDF version.
Then, just access the material in the library, which is in the upper menu on the left side (those three dashes on the upper left side of the screen).
2. “My Quotes” Function
On Google Scholar, you can also find out how to cite academic works in three formats: ABNT (Brazilian Association of Technical Standards), MLA (Modern Language Association) and APA (American Psychological Association) standards.
To do this, just click on the quote icon that is just below each article in the tool. It already provides the bibliographic references of that material ready. That is, you will not have any work in formatting them! Which is great, isn’t it?
It is still possible, in the “My Citations” function, to know the number of times your work has been referenced by third parties.
Remember that this directly influences the credibility of your material (especially if you have the DOI, a globally recognized identifier ), so fill out this section very carefully so that your academic works are correctly referenced around the world!
3. Find specific quotes
You know that case where you already have the quote in hand, but need to know which work it came from? Or do you need to confirm the authorship or year of publication? You can perform a search for the citation itself on Google Scholar. To do this, just put the snippet in quotes. That way, the search engine will understand that that sentence is a citation and not a search title, for example.
You may or may not find the work that gave rise to the citation. But, of course, the search engine will help you refine your search.
4. Find materials published on specific websites, such as universities and events
Another super interesting way to use the Google search engine in your favor is by searching for materials published on specific sites. For example: you want to find research published on the UFPE website and that will, in some way, help you to develop the topic of your research.
To do this, just type “site: university site + keyword you want to search for”. In this way, Google Scholar will search, within the selected university’s website, all the files with the theme of your research.
See how it refines my search, pointing only to UFPE files, in the example site: https://www.ufpe.br/ sucess do cliente
You can do this with domains from UFRJ, UNICAP, UNICAMP
To further refine your search and get more valuable results, a good option is to use Google Scholar’s Advanced Search feature.
While the word “advanced” scares some, this mechanism is pretty easy to use. Follow the steps:
- To do this, just click on the three bars at the top left of the screen.
- Then click on Advanced Search option
With it, you can find files that meet the following criteria:
- that have all the words searched
- or contain the exact search phrase
- that contains at least one of the searched words
- or that does not have the searched words
- with the words searched in the article title or elsewhere in the article
- by author
- By place of publication – refers to the journal, publisher or periodical where it was published.
- And by date – in this case, you define the search to find articles that were produced between 2003 and 2004, for example.
Where can I find Google Scholar indexes?
It is also possible to filter search results based on metric indexes. Indexes work like indexers. There are, for example, the H index and the I10 index. Google Scholar uses its own metric, the H5 index,
According to the site, the H5 index is the index of articles published in the last five years. This is the largest number h of a publication, in which h articles published from 2014 to 2018 were cited at least h times each.
You can search for more relevant materials in English, Portuguese and Spanish, for example. It’s up to you. We will teach you how:
1) Go to the Left Side Menu and click on the “Metrics” or “Metrics” button, in English.
2) First, it will show you the most relevant results in English, but you can filter them by category or by language.
If you still have doubts about whether Google Scholar is a good tool for research, I will list some advantages of the platform. Ready?
Trusted source
If Google Scholar is powered by researchers and, mainly, by journals and scientific journals, it is already much more reliable than “doing a regular Google search”.
In addition, the search engine allows you to check the number of times that work has already been referenced by other researchers. This increases the credibility of your survey.
And your calculation, consequently, will be well executed.
It is free!
You pay nothing to use Google Scholar and yet you have access to thousands of pieces of information. The gratuity is also valid for those who wish to index publications to the tool.
Check out some tips, in this e-book, for writing an academic article before indexing it to Google:
Extensive collection available
Searching on Google Scholar guarantees access to a varied collection: theses, articles, dissertations, scientific abstracts and books. In addition, the materials come from quality magazines and periodicals, such as Scielo.
It is also possible that the authors themselves index their academic works to Google Scholar, which democratizes and facilitates access to information.
refined search
By providing the advanced search option, you can filter your search results well and thus obtain only those that are valuable and that, in fact, make sense for your work. So it’s easier to do a rigorous analysis of what’s going to go into your work.
publishing space
Google Scholar allows users to index academic works of their own to the tool. This is excellent for those who want to increase the visibility and credibility of their scientific productions.
How to download Google Scholar?
We did not find an original version of the Google Scholar app, that is, for mobile phones. However, there are unofficial versions of it for download.
How Google Scholar helps new researchers
If you are a novice researcher, ideally, your research should be seen by as many researchers and students as possible.
With his work being recognized in the academic community , he can even attract new opportunities for events and even research grants, thus making his line of research known.
For those looking for work references, the platform can also be of great help.
The first step is to create your profile on the Google Scholar website. To do this, go to Google Scholar and at the top of the page, click on the ‘ My Profile ‘ option
To do this, you need to be logged into your Google account. Don’t have a Google account? Create the account here .
On this page, you can create your Google Scholar profile.
Remember to include as much information as you can, such as profile picture, institutional email, affiliations and areas of interest.
We recommend that you make your profile public. This makes you more visible to other researchers and students.
After creating your profile, you can now add your scientific works.
Submitting your academic work
If you are going to include only one document, for example your master’s thesis or a scientific article , you can do this manually. For that, you just need to follow the steps:
1) To start adding the document manually, go to the Google Scholar page .
2) Click on “My Profile”
3) Click on “add article manually”
4) Fill in the details about your article (title, author(s), date(s) of publication, volume, publisher and institution.
5) Click save. Finally, if you have filled in everything correctly, the “Add article to your profile” will appear. Congratulations! Now your work will be indexed by Google Scholar!
follow your own profile
Here’s a great tip: follow your own Google Scholar profile.
For this, you need to access your own profile and then, at the top right, choose the ‘follow’ option. Fill in your email and create an alert.
If Google adds a new article to your profile or a new citation, you will receive an email notification.
This is an excellent way to receive updates if another researcher or student cites your work in an academic text.
You may still be able to contact the authors and talk about the research.
It’s a great way to expand networking and create new academic and professional relationships.
