Google Scholar

SEARCH WORDS

1. Define search words as precisely as possible.
2. Avoid noise-generating words (i.e. words that are vague or have multiple meanings)
3. The search itself may help identify the vocabulary and concepts suitable to a subject and/or the terms to be rejected. While searching, collect systematically new relevant words.
4. Translate words in languages that are search-relevant, at least in English.
The quality of the search depends essentially on the words chosen.

BASIC PRINCIPLES

1. When search words are entered without specific syntax in the standard search window, all or part of the specified words are retrieved.
2. Stop words (the, of, in, an…), lower/upper case letters, accents and other diacritical signs are ignored.
3. Quotation marks allow searching for exact phrasing.
4. Truncation does not exist.
5. When using operators, syntax and lower/upper casing must be strictly respected. Spaces are important: words combined must be separated by a single space and a search operator must always be attached to the word it relates to. The operator OR must always be in capital letters.
6. Results are sorted by relevance.

GOOGLE SCHOLAR

CONTENT: Google Scholar allows searching only academic documents, articles, peer-reviewed articles, theses, books, abstracts and citations.

SOURCES: These works may originate from scientific editors, learned societies, preprints, universities and other research centres.

ACCESS: Full text is accessible when it is free, otherwise one can find citations, excerpts or summaries. Access to the University of Geneva’s electronic resources is possible via the University’s computers or by VPN access. 

GOOGLE SCHOLAR PREFERENCES

The Google Scholar Advanced Search Interface allows to define preferences by configurating the following fields:

GOOGLE SCHOLAR ADVANCED SEARCH

Allows an advanced search by means of an advanced search interface or by advanced operators.

GOOGLE SCHOLAR ADVANCED SEARCH INTERFACE

The advanced search interface is similar to Google’s, it allows to:
DEFINE the number of results displayed per page.
REFINE the search by filling out certain fields (green zone) with search words.
RESTRICT the search by author, publication, date or by selecting one of the seven topics proposed.

CHAMP AUTEUR
The search may be refined by entering the author’s full name between quotation marks. Initials should be used in place of first names, as certain sources indexed in Google Scholar use initials only.
The following two searches will not give the same results.

LIMITATION PAR PUBLICATION
Restricting the search by publication is not advisable. It is better to use the journal’s URL and build a search equation by using the site:site operator.

LIMITATION PAR DATE
Certain sources do not mention a publication date; they will therefore not be displayed if a date is specified. To be exhaustive, a search should be made twice, once with and once without date restrict.

GOOGLE SCHOLAR ADVANCED OPERATORS

Most Google advanced operators apply to Google Scholar. The following operators are particularly useful:

+word1 +word2 +word3
Displays results containing all the words.
The + operator ensures that results include numbers, letters or stop words that the Google technology generally ignores.

word1 -word2
Displays results containing word1 but not word2.

«phrase»
Displays only results matching the exact phrase.

word1 OR word2 OR word3
Displays results containing at least one of the words.

intitle:word and allintitle:word1 word2 word3
Restricts the search to pages whose titles (<TITLE> tag) contain the specified word or words

author:author
The author operator displays documents written by the specified person. It is useful when the author’s name is also a common name. The search can be refined by placing the author’s complete name between quotation marks. Initials should be used in place of first names, as certain sources indexed in Google Scholar use initials only. This operator is a Google Scholar operator.

GOOGLE SCHOLAR RESULTS

Search results consist in full text access, excerpts or just references to documents. The following options offer the possibility to refine the search, restart and locate or access a document.

Résultat – Title of the document, in blue, followed by the author and the reference, in green. With a link pointing to a more complete version when accessible.

Obtenir ce document UNIGE – Points towards an electronic version of the document if access is available via UNIGe subscriptions and towards the RERO Geneva Catalogue and Geneva libraries that hold a print version. Interlibrary loan requests are possible or the reference can be imported in Endnote.
Available from the University of Geneva’s computers or with a VPN access.

Cité X fois– Points towards other documents citing the article; this option allows expanding the search.

Autres articles – Points towards articles whose subject is identical or close to it. This option allows expanding the search; it is particularly useful when making a bibliographic search.

Find in RERO – Points towards the RERO catalogue and displays the libraries in the network that hold the document.

Les X versions – Points towards different versions of the document. These can be preprints or analytical summaries but also versions of the same document from different sources.

En cache – The document is no longer available on line but is kept in Google’s memory cache and can be displayed.

[CITATION]/[ LIVRE]/[PDF] – Mentions the type of document if it is not an article.
 

Articles récents – Displays the most recent articles.