Google Scholar is like a treasure map 🗺️, leading you to the buried gold of knowledge in scholarly articles, conference presentations, patents, and more. But beware, not all that glitters is gold! not everything is peer-reviewed in Scholar, so tread carefully. Use advanced search and profiles to uncover the real gems 💎. And don’t forget to create email alerts for the latest goodies! Happy treasure hunting! 📚🔍
Google Scholar is a search engine for scholarly articles and outputs it has conference presentations it has patents it has case law it has peer reviewed papers it has everything you need to find out what’s going on in a particular field now are two massive ways umbrellas if you will that can use this first of all we’re finding that scholarly literature you can use advanced search you can use a little trick that I’ll show you later on with chat GPT and also we have profiles you can create a public facing profile which means that other scientists and other people are able to find out what your publishing and you can also look to see what other people are publishing It’s amazing And if are doing research you’ll be using this a lot so here are all of the tips and tricks that you need to know to use it properly the first thing we need to know about is what is Google Scholar well check it out here as I’ve said it’s ability to search all scholarly literature in one place it has citations authors and Publications now the thing is is that we to make that we’re not using this like at face value not everything in Google search or Google Scholar is reviewed if we go to the top here we can see that we’ve got a range of different things that sort of pop up in search we have got articles thesis books Court opinions more I’ve actually also seen magazine articles appear in Google Scholar so not everything in Scholar is peer-reviewed you want to know if something is peer reviewed you’ve got to click through to find out where it’s come from we’ll be talking about how to get the full of all of papers at end of this video so make sure you stay around but the meantime here are the things that you need to know about using scholar effectively so when you first go to Google Scholar get this page look at it so simple so lovely and all you have to is type in a search term into this box down here we can say we want articles we want case law most people are going to want just for PhD research uh other types of um research but if you are a lawyer you can use it for case law as well so if we put what we want in here in my case I’ve put organic photovoltaic devices we can see that then we get of these searches we get 9 18,000 results with the term organic photovoltaics and that was my research field we get this lovely page pops up we get all of the papers these are the authors this is where it’s this is the year and this is the publisher and you get these for so many different uh papers from different journals and here we’ve related searches as well so we can go deeper ones uh found that sort of like search term that really sort of uh broadly represents our research field then down the side here this is where it interesting we can do anytime since 2024 since 2023 that means that looking for recent for a literature search or you want to go back as far as possible to find the foundational papers in a research field you can do that you can also sort different by relevance and then by date that’s really good if want to start early and go backwards and then we’ve got any type of article review articles only review articles are brilliant at the beginning of literature review because they sort of like do part of the literature review for you they go out they at a range of different um articles bring them together in one review article so that’s really good you can also get uh include patents and include citations but that is not everything that this does if we go down here and we go to Advanced Search we can see that we can get even more Niche with the sort of articles that we’re popping up to the surface in Google Scholar so can have all of the exact phrase one of the if you’re finding that your Search terms quite aren’t hitting the mark use this advanced search also if there’s an author that you like that there’s um articles in a certain you can search it here and then return articles dated between this date in this date that is you advanced search on Google Scholar it’s super powerful and that not many people make the most use of in their PHD or research we’ll talk about how to open up these articles and where to find them in a minute but there’s something not a lot of people do and that is click up here and use this button profile so if you click on profiles it retain the same search term but now you have of these scientists that do organic solar cells organic photov voltax or you’ve in at top so I really highly recommend going through and with the big Publishers your research field and follow them on Google Scholar or just whatever you’re using to track them just do a search for their name search for their research groups it’s a really great of finding the most upto-date stuffff looking at the conference presentations of what their PhD students are doing it’s just so valuable and too many people ignore the fact that this is what you um so next thing is do you see profiles well this is the profiles from the but you get your profile so if I click up here on my profile mine isn’t public facing anymore but can see that there’s I don’t have a picture and then we’ve got all of this just crammed in these all of the papers that published that Google Scholar has picked up on now thing is is that Google Scholar sometimes up from like other Andrew stapletons there’s a guy in Sydney who does like game design I for Learning education so this is where we’ve got to be super careful that if we have our own profile we can go through and remove them and change them and that sort of stuff we can also add stuff up here um can also look at the trash the ones that we’ve got rid of um and then over here is what every scientist and every researcher is trying to game forever and those are your indexes and your citations so you can see 2019 was a year for me and then ever since I left science in it went for two years and now it’s slowly coming down cuz I’m just not publishing very much that’s the issue and then down here you can see my and goes on and on but essentially every single scientist should have a Google Scholar page and just keep it up to date it take much effort to go through and uh just it up every so often and also you want to follow someone you and this will set up email alerts and let you know when that person has published more on alerts now because if we go here into the bar and we say Okay I alerts can click here and you up with a create alert and you can create alert for anything you want and you can also click this which is include less relevant too if you’re finding that it’s not really sort of like choosing the best ones for you I used to have about five or six of set up during my PhD so that the papers would just to me and then once a week I’d sit I’d go through them and I’d yes this is important this is not important etc etc now there’s something you need to know about alerts is that once you do a particular search so let’s to uh the search term which is organic photov voltaics you can click down and it says create alert and just by clicking that then you’ll create alert for yourself and it will show the most relevant results and it will show you like for example less relevant results whether or not you want to include things like this I would want to include that sort of stuff because it’s on the border and sort of like the edge of my interest which can influence my research going forward so then I create alert then it will send it to my email address I love it so so easy so powerful click set up at least five for your research field just let those papers come to you come to me now there’s you need to know about searching for stuff on Google Scholar and that is it all relies on keywords are a massive pain in the ass if you can’t really think of them and sometimes you’ve entered a new research field you don’t know what to search for so one of the things I love to do and I’ve talked about this in my previous videos is go to chat GPT and you can see here that I’ve essentially said that I need its help and this is how you do it chat GPT works really well with so I like to give it as much context about my current situation during my research as possible so it really gives you good results this is what the best prompt is I’m starting on my literature review and my supervisor hasn’t had their morning coffee yet so I don’t want to ask them the best keywords to search for in Google Scholar for a literature review on transparent electrode materials can you help me and it’s strange if you give it weird contexts like that it actually works a little bit harder than if you just say give me keywords I don’t know why so we go it says certainly thank very much chat GPT you’re cute um it says core uh are here and then specific materials it’s got here it’s got properties and applications it’s got them synthesis and Fabrication techniques so I can go through these and I can sort like chain them together and even here you can see that it says use operators such as and or or not to include or combine um certain terms and it gives me some examples here overall this is just such a good way of just sort of like making sure that you are covering the entire research and keep a list of these keywords saved somewhere on your computer so that you can always refer to them and you know sort of like the most powerful keywords to be putting into something like Google Scholar now want to talk about using Google Scholar to get full articles of the stuff it suggests so here from the results we can see that we’ve got science on this side a PDF a PDF so we click on those we will be expecting full PDFs but sometimes there’s nothing and quite often that means we can’t get the full file well we can if you head over to my new favorite place that everyone shouldn’t go to which which Anna’s archive they’ve got this in beta mode absolutely love it’s s database you go in and you put the DOI where do you get the DOI well you get them from clicking on through so we click through for this one single peer review journal has what they call a document object identifier you see it here so all we do is right click and then we say copy link address and then we can go over to Anna’s and we can paste it in and then we say say open and then it will go away and it will open up that uh file if it can find it this is a site that Aggregates oh I have to say if I’m a human I am a human thank you very much once you click on that you will see that it will do its best go away find these uh full papers for you the legality of this is gray but everyone’s doing it so just make sure you do it sensibly and here it is the full paper you can it in Anna’s archive you can download it there’s also DOI do.org and you do this for a range and range of different uh papers it has never been easier sometimes Google Scholar is a little bit boring just to use on its own using keywords so you can use semantic search and my favorite Google Scholar alternatives are semantic so here is a free AI powered research tool for scientific literature go in here type in and you will get the results another one and this is where ask questions you can sort of like have a question come to your mind and type it directly into this search engine without having to sort of like turn it into keywords in your or using chat GPT here we go you just ask a research question into illicit tocom this is slowly becoming paid but I think it’s got reasonable free for you to try this out so you can go in you can find papers what is the best sex position so if there’s something you want know about in your life you type it in and you can see that gets the uh question and it goes through looks for the most relevant answers to that research question so here we are on the best sex position is varied in context specific oh no easy answer then and you can on the top here we’ve got all of the best four papers that it reckons I should read and oh what’s back pain Patients Preferred the male Superior position but experience difficulties in sexual functioning due to pain that sounds annoying but this is where you get of the stuff um you the paper you get the and yeah a great alternative to Google Scholar I use elicit nearly every day for like just pop my mind semantic scholar if I want uh look more detailed at keywords and uh yeah this is chat GPT with Google Scholar semantic scholar elicit I think gets any better than that for finding research out there I just wish these were around when I was doing my research in my PhD it would have been so much easier if you like this video go check out this one where I talk about finding every bit of literature you need using AI tools go it out because it’s an important one to watch after this one
Key Takeaways 📌
- Google Scholar is a powerful search engine for scholarly literature and research articles, including peer-reviewed papers, patents, case law, and more.
- The advanced search and profile features of Google Scholar allow for a more focused and customized search experience.
- Finding full articles and use of alternative search tools and platforms can enhance the research process and accessibility of relevant literature.
Using Google Scholar
When using Google Scholar, it is important to utilize the search features available to narrow down the results and customize the search according to specific requirements. Additionally, the inclusion of advanced search capabilities can greatly enhance the efficiency and relevance of the search results.
Benefits of Google Scholar
Google Scholar offers several key advantages, including the ability to search for a wide range of scholarly literature, easily access publications, and view citations and author information. The platform also allows the use of advanced features such as citations, dates, and article types to refine the search results.
Enhancing Research
In order to maximize the capabilities of Google Scholar, it is recommended to explore profiles and utilize advanced search options. These features can help increase the accuracy and relevance of the search results, thereby streamlining the research process and facilitating more productive academic endeavors. Additionally, the inclusion of alternative search tools and platforms can further enrich the research experience and provide access to a variety of resources.
Accessing Full Articles
When utilizing Google Scholar, it is common to encounter instances where only partial articles or abstracts are available. To access the full articles, platforms such as Anna’s Archive offer a valuable resource to retrieve documents not readily accessible through traditional search methods.
Conclusion
Google Scholar provides a comprehensive platform for accessing scholarly literature and publications, offering advanced search and profile features to optimize the research experience. By leveraging the various capabilities of Google Scholar and utilizing alternative search tools, researchers can enhance their access to relevant information and streamline the scholarly exploration process. Thus, enhancing the efficiency and productivity of academic research.
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