When it comes to finding scholarly articles, Google Scholar is a great place to start. But with so many results, how do you know which ones are relevant to your research?
Thankfully, there are a few tricks that can help you find the most relevant article quickly and easily. In this post, we’ll cover the top 5 tips for finding relevant articles on Google Scholar.
What is Google Scholar?
You might be wondering, what is Google Scholar? In a nutshell, it’s a search engine designed specifically for academic papers and articles. So, if you’re looking for a more sophisticated way to research academic papers beyond just Googling your topic, this is a great place to start.
Unlike Google search, which searches the web in general and isn’t designed to be on a scholarly database, Google Scholar only searches for scholarly articles.
Google Scholar has an index of over 27 million full-text documents from thousands of publishers in the science (over 4 million), social sciences (over 6 million), arts and humanities (over 7 million), engineering (over 3 million), and medicine (over 5 million).
How to Evaluate the Relevance of an Article
The evaluation process is important to ensure that the article you’re reading is actually relevant to your needs. Here are some factors to consider:
- The date the article was published: If you’re looking for cutting-edge information, you don’t want to be reading an article that’s 10 years old. That said, sometimes older articles can be useful for historical context.
- The journal the article was published in: A peer-reviewed journal is going to be more reputable than a blog, for example.
- The author: What are their credentials? Are they an expert in the field?
- The audience: Who is the article meant for? If it’s written for a general audience, it may not be as technical as you need.
Keep these factors in mind as you read through an article to determine if it’s actually relevant to your needs.
Now that we’ve answered these questions, let’s move on to the tips!
Define the Keyword you use carefully
You can search through these sources using keywords or phrases. By using keywords that are specific to your topic, you can narrow down the results and find articles that are more likely to the point. For example, if you are looking for articles on the health benefits of green tea, try searching for something like “green tea AND health benefits.”
One more thing to remember is to just don’t simply type keywords into Google Scholar hoping that something useful will emerge. This will do nothing but gives you jumbled and repetitive results. Instead, break that down into subtopics and from that list create keywords and keyword phrases that might help you get fruitful information for each subtopic.
Use Advanced Search to curate the ideal results
You can also use Google Scholar’s advanced search features to further narrow down your results. Just click on the “Advanced search”, from there, you can specify the type of document you are looking for, the date range of publication and other options.
And finally, don’t forget to take a look at the related articles that Google Scholar shows you on the right-hand side of your search results. These are often just as relevant as the articles that show up in the main search results.
Try related articles to expand your sources
When you use Google Scholar to check out a source, you may notice that there is an option below the search result “Related Articles”.
And finally, don’t forget to take a look at the related articles that Google Scholar shows you on the right-hand side of your search results. These are often just as relevant as the articles that show up in the main search results.
Try related articles to expand your sources
When you use Google Scholar to check out a source, you may notice that there is an option below the search result “Related Articles”.
For better results search in incognito mode
Google helpfully remember what you have searched previously, so when you search in standard mode it can use previous data to influence your current search results. It’s a great feature no doubt if you are just doing some general research for your own information or entertainment but not if you are trying to find academic content on a particular topic.
By going into incognito mode, whatever you search it will not be saved in the history and your search results will not be influenced by anything.
BONUS TIP
You can search for articles published exclusively in the top journals and by specific fields. To find the manuscripts that would be most helpful to you, use the Metrics feature from the menu on the Google Scholar home page.
By following these tips, you can quickly and easily find relevant articles on Google Scholar. So get started today and see what you can find!
