Google Scholar Tips

1. Use these two links, located below an entry in Google Scholar, to find more articles.

• Cited by - shows a list of all articles and books that used/cited the selected article
• Related articles - shows a list of articles Google says are similar to the selected article (it's the algorithm!)

2. Use the library and Google Scholar together!

• Open a Google Scholar in a browser tab and open another browser tab for the library
• Find an article in Google Scholar, then copy and paste the title into the library's main search box to get access to the full article and the citation
• Use the articles you find in Google Scholar to identify some keywords scholars use for your topic and use those in a library search
• Find an article in the library, then copy and paste the title into Google Scholar to use the two links ("Cited by" and "Related articles")
• Google the question "is [journal name] peer-reviewed?" - the results will quickly tell you if the journal uses a peer-review process

Google Search Tips

• Site - search by the type of website:
  • add site:.edu to any google search to limit results to university websites. Example: environmental advocacy site:.edu
  • add site:.gov to limit the results to government websites. Example: "Nutritional advocacy programs" site:.gov
  • add site:website name to search a specific website. Example: environmental advocacy site:nytimes.com OR environmental advocacy site:un.org
  • add site:.country domain name to search a specific website. Example (Afghanistan): advocacy site:.af
• File type - add filetype:.pdf or .ppt or .doc to find only those types of documents. Example: greenwashing filetype:.ppt
• Exact phrase - use quote marks to search for an exact phrase. Example: "nutritional advocacy programs"
• Part of the page - Google automatically searches "anywhere in the page" but if you know the search term is in the title, text, or URL, you can limit the search to the part you want.
  • add "intitle" to search in just the title of the site. Example: intitle:environmental advocacy
  • add "intext" to search just the text of the site
  • add "inURL" to search in just the URL of the site. 

Choose your Google

There are three Google search options. Choose one or try them all to see which one you prefer.

• Google - searches, or indexes, the entire web.
• Google Advanced Search - also indexes the entire web, but it offers more ways to limit or filter your search to help you find credible sources. 
• Google Scholar - indexes only scholarly literature that may or may not be in library databases.