Make Google Scholar work even harder for you!

Google Scholar can be a great place to start your search on a topic as it is easy to use and searches a huge range of sources. However, it does not search everything, and it can be hard to determine the quality of articles found in Google Scholar so you should not use it as your only source of information, but as a starting point to supplement searches done using the Library’s quality academic databases.

Here we have some helpful tips for boosting your searches when using Google Scholar.

Link Google Scholar to Cranfield University Library

To make it easier to find full text you can link the library’s subscriptions to your Google Scholar account. To set this up:

1. Go to Google Scholar and sign in if you wish. If you don’t sign in you can still follow the steps below.
2. Click the ‘hamburger menu’ at the top left of the screen and choose ‘Settings’
3. Click ‘Library links’
4. Type Cranfield in the search box and search. Once the results screen shows, check all the boxes and click save
5. The next time you do a search, the Full-text@ CranfieldUni links will show next to results we have full text access to.

Focus your results by using advanced search tricks

Instead of sifting through millions of results, Google Scholar offers advanced search functions that help you narrow your focus and find highly relevant results.

Boolean operators

• AND: All search terms are combined using AND by default, so there’s no need to type this operator.
• OR: To combine synonyms, type them at the beginning of your search query and type OR between the terms.
• NOT: Use the minus sign (–) to exclude a term from your results.

Example: thermal power OR geothermal -fossil fuels

Matching

• use “double quotation marks” around keywords to search for exact phrases
• type allintitle: to ensure all your terms appear in the title of the results

Example:  allintitle:supply chain “Red Sea”

Source

You can specify that results come from a particular source or be a certain file type;

• site: specify results from a particular website

Example: site:cranfield.ac.uk

• source: find results only from a particular journal

Example: source:”journal of cleaner production”

• filetype: finds results in a certain file format such as PDF or PowerPoint (ppt).

Example: to find a PDF file about solar power, type: solar power filetype:pdf

Combining functions

You can combine these functions into a single search too, if you wanted to;

Example: solar power source:”journal of cleaner production” filetype:pdf

 

Speed up your reading and evaluation of PDF documents

If you have a lot of papers to read, you might find the Google Scholar PDF Reader browser extension helpful. This extension is available for both Chrome and Edge browsers.

Once installed, the extension activates when you open a PDF in your browser. It provides an AI-generated outline of the PDF alongside the original text. Each point in the AI outline is clickable, taking you to the exact spot in the original paper it refers to, so you can easily verify information and see the original work, helping to avoid accidental plagiarism. The extension can significantly speed up your reading and evaluation process, making it easier to pinpoint the sections most relevant to your work.

Why not check out your subject or course guide on the Library website to find out which high-quality library databases are the most appropriate to help you find academic literature in your subject area?

Feature Image from Google Scholar.