Find It
Research Like a Professor · Guide 2 of 9
Google Scholar is a map of what researchers have published: articles, books, theses, and court opinions, all free to search at scholar.google.com. It won't always hand you the article, but it will tell you what exists, who wrote it, and who has built on it since. Bring your question from guide 1; this guide shows you how to read the map.
Reading a result
Each Scholar result packs a lot into a few lines. The title links to the publisher's page, which may ask you to pay; don't, until you've tried guide 3. The green line under it gives the authors, the journal or book, and the year, which together are your citation. The snippet shows a few sentences where your search words appear.
The small links underneath are where the real work happens:
| Link | What it does |
|---|---|
| [PDF] or [HTML], at the right | A copy you can likely read for free |
| Cited by | Every later work that cited this one: the trail forward |
| Related articles | Works on a similar subject, chosen by Scholar |
| All versions | Other copies, often including a free one posted by the author |
| Cite | A ready-made citation in several styles (see guide 8) |
| Save (the star) | Keeps the result in your own Scholar library; needs a Google account |
Find the DOI. Most journal articles have a DOI, a Digital Object Identifier. It's a permanent ID that starts with 10. and looks something like 10.1234/abcd.5678. Titles get retyped wrong and links break; a DOI doesn't. Scholar doesn't always show it, so click the title and look near the top of the publisher's page, or on the first page of the PDF. Copy it into your notes. It's the single most useful thing to send with a library request (guide 3).
If you're a student, open Scholar's settings and add your school under Library links. Results will then show a link straight to your school library's copy.
Four search moves
- Use quotation marks for exact phrases. "rural school consolidation" finds those three words together, not scattered across a page. Combine a phrase with a single word to narrow further: "rural school consolidation" Kentucky.
- Set the years. The left side of the results page lets you limit by date. Choose a custom range to match your question, or pick a recent year when you want the latest thinking.
- Search by author. Once you find someone who writes well on your question, type author: followed by the name, such as author:"bell hooks". Their other work is often the next thing you need.
- Let the map come to you. On any results page, choose Create alert. Scholar will email you when new work matching your search appears, which is useful for a question you'll keep asking for months.
If a search returns thousands of results, your question probably needs another narrowing pass from guide 1. If it returns almost nothing, try your alternate words.
Follow the trail
The surest way professors find sources isn't searching at all. It's following one good source in both directions.
Backward, through its references. The list at the end of a good article is someone else's finished search on your question. Skim it for titles that match yours, then look those up.
Forward, through Cited by. Click Cited by under the result to see every later work that built on it. To find the newest, click Search within citing articles and add a word from your question.
One strong article, followed both ways, can give you a dozen more in ten minutes. When the same few titles keep turning up in both directions, you've found the core of the conversation.
What the map leaves out
Every map leaves things off, and knowing what's missing is part of reading it.
Being listed isn't being good. Scholar includes nearly anything that looks scholarly. A high Cited by count tells you a work is talked about, not that it's right. Guide 5 covers how to check.
Local history is thin here. County newspapers, school records, family papers and the census mostly live elsewhere: digitized newspaper archives, your library's local-history or genealogy room, and archives that Scholar doesn't search. Guide 6 covers those.
News and magazines are better found in your library's databases. In Kentucky, that's the Kentucky Virtual Library (KYVL); guide 3 shows how.
Next: Guide 3, Get It, on bringing what you found home, free.
Research Like a Professor is a nine-part series. See all nine guides.