How to Use Google Scholar for Academic Research

Google Scholar works similarly to regular Google, except instead of searching the internet, Google Scholar searches academic and scholarly sources. It’s a great tool for research and classroom assignments. This wikiHow article teaches you how to use Google Scholar to research any topic and cite it in your own work.

Quick Steps

Go to scholar.google.com.
Link your institution's library in ☰ > Settings > Library Links
Use the search bar to search for your topic.
Use the side menu to the left to narrow your search.
Click Advanced Search in the menu (☰) to access advanced search options.
Click an article title to view the full text (or where you can find it).

Section 1 of 7:

What is Google Scholar?

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Google Scholar is an academic search engine. Unlike Google’s main search engine, which searches all manner of websites on the internet, Google Scholar focuses on academic and scholarly texts for research purposes. It also provides information you can use to cite articles and text that you find. Google Scholar can be used to search for the following types of information:^{[1]
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- Academic articles
- Peer-reviewed research
- Books
- Scholarly websites
- Dissertations
- Legal opinions
- Court documents
- Conference proceedings

Section 2 of 7:

Getting Started

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1
Go to the Google Scholar webpage. Open your preferred internet browser, and go to scholar.google.com to visit Google Scholar. You will see a webpage that resembles the regular Google Search page, with the Google Scholar logo and a search box underneath.
- You can access Google Scholar via a computer or mobile device.
- The Google Chrome browser also has a Google Scholar Button you can add to make searching easier. You can add the Google Scholar extension from the Chrome Web Store.^{[2]
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Sign in to your Google account. To access some of Google Scholar’s services and features, you’ll want to be logged into your Google account (it’s easy to set up one if you haven’t already). Just click Sign In in the top right corner of the Google Scholar webpage and follow the prompts. This will link your use of Google Scholar to your Gmail and other Google accounts.
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Sign in to an institutional or library account if you have one. Many sources Google Scholar finds have restricted access, but if you have access to a library or other institution that subscribes to the right services, you may be able to reach these. Use the following steps to sign in to your academic institution or library:^{[3]
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- Click the icon with three lines (☰) in the upper-right corner.
- Click Settings.
- Click Library Links.
- Enter the name of your library or academic institution.
- Click the Magnifying Glass icon.
- Click the checkbox next to your library (you can select up to 5).
- Click Save.

Section 3 of 7:

Doing a Basic Search

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1
Enter search terms. In the search box, type the key terms for the topic you are searching for. Then, click the search button (to the right of the search bar, with a magnifying glass icon) to pull up results.
- For instance, if you are interested in Vietnamese culture, you could type in “the culture of the Vietnamese people.”
- Using as few search terms as possible will return broader results. For instance, you could search for “Vietnamese people” or “Vietnamese culture.” Use keywords instead of full sentences.
- If you have trouble finding relevant results, try an additional or different search term. For instance, if you are interested in the everyday life of Vietnamese people, and “Vietnamese people” isn’t returning useful results, try searching for “Vietnamese people customs.”
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Get citation information. Pay attention to titles, author names, publication dates, and other information that Google Scholar will supply. Keep an eye out for results that seem interesting or relevant to your topic.
- For example, if you search for “Vietnamese Culture,” you might see a result for the article “Culture Shock: A Review of Vietnamese Culture and its Concepts of Health and Disease,” and see that it is by M.D. Nguyen, and was published in the Western Journal of Medicine in 1985.
- You might be interested in the specific topic (Vietnamese culture and health), the author, or the fact that it was published in 1985.
- You might also see a brief abstract or snippet of text from the result, which can help you determine if it is relevant to your search.
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Go to the full text, if possible. Some results found via Google Scholar will be full text, meaning you can click on the title of the result and go directly to read the full article, book, or other sources via your web browser. Many academic sources, however, have restricted access and do not allow the general public to see the full text.^{[4]
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- Clicking on a search result might take you to the full text, an abstract, a snippet, or a limited preview.
- If you see PDF to the right of the article title, click this link to download the text as a PDF.
- If you are logged into your institutional account, Google Scholar may provide links for full-text access. For instance, if you are logged into your Harvard account, look for “Availability at Harvard” and/or “FindIt@Harvard” for more information about whether or not you can access the full text of particular sources.
- If you don’t have an institutional or library account, some restricted sources may have the option of paying a fee to view them.
- If a source you want to view is restricted, click All Versions at the bottom of the citation information. If the source is accessible via other databases, you might be able to find one that is non-restricted.

Section 4 of 7:

Doing an Advanced Search

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1
Use the sidebar options to narrow your search. Click the options to the left to narrow your search results. For example, you can click Since 2023 to limit your search results to articles that have been published since 2023. You can also sort your search results by relevance or by date. Additionally, you can click the option to include citations and patents.^{[5]
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- To search for case law, click the radio option that says “Case law” below the search bar.
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Use Boolean search connectors. You can run a more precise search by coupling your search terms with Boolean connectors. For instance:
- By typing "OR" (must be capitalized) between search terms, Google Scholar will retrieve results containing either term. If you are interested in the culture of both Vietnam and Thailand, you can search for “Vietnam OR Thailand culture”.
- Typing "AND" (capitalized) between search terms will search for articles containing both search terms.
- Typing "NOT" (capitalized) before a search term will eliminate it from the results. For instance, if you are researching Vietnamese culture but do not want to find results related to the Vietnam War, searching for “Vietnamese culture NOT war” will stop Google Scholar from giving results that use the key term “war.”
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Restrict your search using other commands. Google Scholar allows users to search more precisely by entering other text instructions into the search bar. Familiarizing yourself with these can help you find more relevant sources. Some of the most common commands include:^{[6]
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- Searching for an exact phrase by putting it in quotation marks. Using the search terms Vietnamese culinary traditions without quotes will return all sources containing the words traditions, culinary, and Vietnamese all individually, while searching for “Vietnamese culinary traditions” (in quotation marks) will only return results with that exact phrase
- Requesting sources with a particular term in the title using the command “intitle:”. If you want to find works on Vietnamese food traditions with the word “culinary” in the title, search for “Vietnamese intitle: culinary”.
- Restricting results to those by a particular author by entering “author:” before the name. For example, if you want to find works on Vietnamese culture by M. Thomas, enter “Vietnamese culture author: Thomas, M.”
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Access the Advanced Search feature. The advanced search feature allows you to narrow and specify your search. Use the following steps to access the advanced search feature window:
- Click the icon with three lines (☰) in the upper-right corner.
- Click Advanced Search.
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Use the Advanced Search window. Enter your search terms in the various search bars and then click the magnifying glass icon to perform an advanced search. The Advanced Search window features the following options:^{[7]
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- with all of the words: This search bar will return sources that feature any of the words you enter into this bar in no particular order.
- with the exact phrase: This search bar will return sources with the exact phrase you enter into this bar rather than searching for each word individually.
- with at least one of the words: This search bar will return sources that feature at least one of the words you enter, but not necessarily all of them.
- without the words: This search bar will exclude sources from your search that you enter into this bar.
- where my words occur: This option allows you to select whether your search applies to the entire article or just the title.
- Return articles authored by: This search bar allows you to specify an author's name in your search.
- Return articles published in: This search bar allows you to specify a publication or journal in which your article appeared.
- Return articles dated between: This allows you to specify a date range for when your article was published.
If you find a source you find interesting or relevant to your topic, clicking the Related articles link at the bottom of a source’s citation information will return results connected to that source. For example, the results may include other sources by the same author, ones that use the same keywords, or those with similar titles.
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Click Cited by to get a sense of a source’s impact. Sometimes, you want to find high-impact sources cited by many other sources. Google Scholar will track certain instances when a source generates citations in other works.
- Keep in mind that Google Scholar only tracks citations in works that the service already indexes. This means, for instance, that it will not show if a source is cited in a journal that Google Scholar does not include in its searches.

Section 5 of 7:

Citing an Article

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Google Scholar makes it easy to add properly formatted citations in your bibliography or references.
Google Scholar lists 5 citation formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and Vancouver.
To do so, either right-click the text (or Control-click on Mac) and click Copy. Alternatively, you can click one of the links at the bottom to export a file to your citation manager.
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Paste the text into your references list. To do so, click where you want to paste the citation, right-click (or Ctrl-click on Mac), then click Paste.
- You may need to make minor adjustments to the formatting, such as adding a hanging indent for MLA.

Section 6 of 7:

Using Scholar Labs

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It’s at the top of the page in the upper-left corner. It’s next to an icon that resembles a beaker. Scholar labs is a new AI-powered feature that is designed to help you answer detailed research questions.
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Enter a question in the search bar. You’ll see a few example questions, and then a bar that says “Ask Scholar” at the bottom.
- For example, if you are researching Vietnamese culture, you could ask a question like “What influences have shaped Vietnamese culture?”, “How has Vietnamese culture changed over the past century?”, or “How has the Vietnam War influenced Vietnamese culture?”
Google Scholar will use AI to analyze your question and identify key topics, aspects, and relationships. It will then return a variety of scholarly articles and sources related to your question. You can click, download, or cite any of the sources it returns, just as you would in a normal search.^{[8]
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Ask a follow-up question. If you want to refine your searches even more, you can ask a follow-up question. Enter a follow up question in the bar that says “Ask a follow-up” at the bottom of the screen.
- For example, you could ask a follow-up question like “How has Vietnamese culture changed since the Vietnam War?”

Section 7 of 7:

Getting the Most Out of Google Scholar

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1
Sign up for email alerts. Google Scholar can keep track of any particular search terms you are interested in. When new sources using those terms are added to its database, it will email you citation information for those sources. To sign up for these alerts, click the icon with three lines (☰) in the upper-left corner to open the menu, then click Alerts. Click Create alert and then enter some keywords or a phrase for the alert.^{[9]
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- For instance, creating an alert for “Vietnamese cultural traditions” will send you an email anytime Google Scholar finds new sources using those key terms.
2
Save sources to your Google Scholar library. If you are logged into your Google account, you can save citation information for interesting sources you find to make it easier to retrieve them later. Just click Save at the bottom of a source’s citation information, and Google Scholar will add it to “My library.”^{[10]
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- To access your library, click the icon with three lines (☰) in the upper-left corner to open the menu, and then click My Library in the menu to the left.
3
Set up a Google Scholar profile. If you have authored any academic papers of your own, you may want to set up a Google Scholar profile to make your work more visible to other researchers.^{[11]
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- To set up a profile, click My Profile in the upper-left corner. Then fill out the form and add your university email, affiliations, areas of interest, and a website. Click Next and verify your email. Check the articles you want associated with your profile. You can also create citations manually for any works not listed. Then you can decide if you want to make your profile public or not. Review your profile and add any other details you wish to add.
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Be aware of Google Scholar’s strengths and weaknesses. Google Scholar is free to use and intuitive to operate. It can be useful for running initial searches and for general research. However, you may need to consider some of its limitations when researching. For example:
- Many of its search results are restricted.
- You cannot limit it to the type of source you want to find (e.g., books only or articles only).
- You cannot know which databases Google Scholar uses to find its search results.
- There are sometimes errors in the way Google Scholar records data (e.g., journal names may mistakenly be listed as authors).
- Some results that Google Scholar retrieves (such as personal web pages, non-peer-reviewed articles, etc.) may not be traditionally-defined scholarship.
- Some sources may not be included in a Google Scholar search that you may find at your local library. For example, Google Scholar does not return sources like podcasts, videos, statistics, or special collections.
- Searches related to social sciences may be uneven. Google Scholar is better for hard sciences.^{[12]
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- You need to evaluate the quality and source of an article before trusting it.

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Tips

If you use a citation manager, such as EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, or RefWorks, you may be able to configure it to sync with Google Scholar. Check the user guides for the manager you use to see if this option is available to you.^{[13]
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In addition to Google Scholar, librarian Kim Gillingham notes that “most public and university libraries have databases providing access to scholarly articles. Don’t hesitate to ask a librarian for guidance—they are there to help.”^{[14]
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Kim Gillingham, MA
Master's Degree, Library Science, Kutztown University

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