Tips for using Google Scholar

Tips for using Google Scholar from the University of Illinois:

Accessing Google Scholar

You may search Google Scholar at: 
https://scholar.google.com/

If you use Firefox, you may also want to add a search plugin for Google Scholar, so you can
search GS more easily!  Here's how:

• The default search engine on the Firefox toolbar is Google.  But you can add many other
  search engines to the toolbar, and access them via the dropdown list next to the search bar.
  To find other search engines, search the MyCroft Project site.  Some popular search
  engines to add:
• Google Scholar; Google News; Internet Movie Database (IMDB); Wikipedia; Amazon; UIUC Library, Easy Search; YouTube; Epicurious; etc.
• Once you have located a search engine in MyCroft, just click on it's name and it will be added
  to your list of search engines. 
• If you've added a lot of search engines to the Firefox toolbar, you may want to put them in a
  specific order; do this via the "Manage Search Engines" link, at the bottom of the list of search
  engines.

Setting up Preferences in Google Scholar

Be sure to set up your Google Scholar preferences so you have access to the Library's "Discover"
links and can more readily download citations into RefWorks or EndNote.

• From the Google Scholar page, https://scholar.google.com/, click on Scholar Preferences.
• Under "Library Links", search for:  University of South Florida. Select all that match.  Follow these links to the full text of articles subscribed to by the USF Library.  Note:  if you are on campus, you will see these links without even selecting this GS preferences option.
• Under "Bibliographic Manager", select the tool you use:  RefWorks, EndNote,
  etc.  Now you'll see a link in each GS record that will allow you to download the basic
  citation information into your tool.  Note:  This only allow you to download the
  information that GS has for each article -- so you will not get the abstracts, keywords, etc.
  
• Be sure to click on "Save Preferences", when you have completed making the
  selection on this page that you want.
  

Searching Google Scholar

Fundamentally, you can search Google Scholar much as you do Google.  Be aware that it is
searching a somewhat different universe than Google does, as it searches behind the firewalls of
many, many publisher websites, pdfs, etc.  It also searches quality sites such as researcher's web sites.

Some quick tips for searching Google or Google Scholar:

• Use parentheses to hold phrases together, e.g., "glucose transporter" "brain tumor"
• Normally Google searches for items that contain all the terms in the search box (and AND)
  search.  To perform an OR search, put OR in caps, e.g., "honey bee" OR honeybee
• If you are interested in articles that speak of a certain topic, but not if they mention another, put a minus sign directly in front of the undesired term or phrase, e.g., "apis mellifera"
  disease -varroa

Use the Advanced Search to Search Google Scholar. 

To the right of the GS search box is a link for the Advanced Scholar Search.  Besides facilitating topical search, the Advanced Search allows you to search specifically by author, publication, publication date range, and more.

Pulling multiple Google Scholar citations into EndNote or RefWorks

Have you ever been frustrated that you can only download one citation at a time from Google
Scholar?  If so, then I would recommend that you investigateZotero and / or Publish or Perish (POP).  Both of these free (to academics) tools will help you download selected GS citations into a RIS text file, which you can them import into RefWorks or EndNote. Please refer the detailed instructions
here.

Search Google Scholar using EndNote Online

Note:  this suggeston is from Donna Kirking, Senior Product Trainer, Research Software,
Thomson Reuters; contact her if you have questions...

Phone: +1 510 931 7512   Donna.Kirking@thomsonreuters.com

There is now an easier way to get a larger number of references from Google Scholar into EndNote
than doing it one at a time or going through Zotero.

If you install the EndNote online/basic toolbar, you can capture a full page of Google Scholar
references if your Google Scholar settings are to use EndNote Online (aka MyEndnoteWeb) as your
bibliography software.

Note that you will need to have the following set up to make it work:

• Google Scholar will need to be set in advance to use the EndNote format for its bibliography
  settings.

• You will need an EndNote online or EndNote basic account to import the references into.
  They will not import directly to EndNote on the desktop, but they can be synced to EndNote desktop from EndNote online.  You can sign up for an EndNote online account through Web of Knowledge - click on the Endnote link at the top of a search page to get started.  The EndNote
  online/basic toolbar preferences must be set to import to the online library. You can change these settings by selecting
  
  Tools>Add-ons>Extensions, then clicking on the
  
  Option
  button for the EndNote Capture extension.  You should be using the current EndNote Capture add-on, version 3.8.  If you are using an older add-on, I suggest updating it.