Google Scholar Tips

Google Scholar uses the popular Google search engine to enable searches for scholarly materials such as:
- peer-reviewed papers
- theses, books
- preprints
- abstracts and technical reports
It searches a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, that make scholarly articles available via the web.
Note: Google Scholar does not publicize what information it chooses to include or exclude.
Google Scholar locates full text resources and citations. Some links to full text sources ask for payment. Read about accessing Google Scholar from off campus to see how you can use Google Scholar's "Library Links" feature to explicitly identify yourself as an OSU affiliate and access these materials through OSU Libraries.

If you cannot access the full text source from Google Scholar, or simply have a citation for an item from Google Scholar, try searching the Library Catalog to see if the library has the journal article in print or electronic form.
When searching for articles from journals, it is most efficient to search on the Exact Journal Title page if you have trouble finding the journal in the Library Catalog.
Tip: Remember that when searching for articles, search for the title of the journal, not the title of the article.
If we do not have the item, you may place an Interlibrary Loan request. We will get it from another library for free for you. This usually takes 3-5 business days (but can take longer).
If you have trouble locating the item, ask a librarian.

Search Google Scholar just as you would search Google.
To do advanced searches in Google Scholar, including searches for a particular author or in a particular journal, use the Advanced Scholar Search page.
Google Scholar ranks and lists results according to how relevant they are to the search query.
Google Scholar rankings include how often the work was cited.
The most relevant references should theoretically appear at the top of the page.

If you click "cited by," you will get a list of documents which cited the document you originally retrieved.
This list only includes documents available in Google Scholar.
Tip: To get a complete list, use a citation index such as Web of Science.

If you click on "library search," Google Scholar will try to locate the material in a local library
Click on "Search the Catalog at your Library" to see if we have the material at OSU

"Web Search" starts a regular Google Search
If you have a citation, you can click "Web Search" to see if you can find the full text through a Google search
If you can't find it, read the suggestions below to see how to find the full text through the library.
Clicking "Web Search" for a book will take you to sites to purchase the book online.

If you are a currently enrolled student, staff or faculty member at OSU, this will save you money.
In many cases, links to full text sources are through subscriptions. The library already pays for many of these subscriptions.
If you use the library link to Google Scholar, you may be able to access subscriptions already paid for by the library.
If you are off campus, you will be prompted for your OSU ID number.
If you do not use the library link for off campus access, many of these full text sources will ask for payment.

Ask a librarian or contact your Subject librarian for more assistance. You may also read the Google Scholar help page for more information.