LibGuides: Google Scholar: Searching in Google Scholar

Google Scholar

Google Scholar provides a simple way to search for scholarly literature broadly. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts, and court opinions from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities, and other websites.

Review the interactive tutorial below for steps on how to search within Google Scholar.

Click the purple "Next" button to progress through the slides.

Review or download tutorial below for steps on how to search within Google Scholar.

Searching in Google Scholar Tutorial

1. Go to https://scholar.google.com/.

google scholar home page

2. In the search bar, type in words related to your topic.

search bar highlighted

Do not type in your entire research question. Break it down into keywords and enter them into the search bar.

Use Boolean operators, like AND, OR, or NOT to help refine your search.

3. When you're finished typing in your keywords, click the search button.

example keywords typed into search bar and search button highlighted

4. To filter the results based on year, click the "Year" filter in the top right corner.

filter by year button

5. Review the titles and descriptions to make sure items are relevant to your topic.

example resource highlighted

6. When you find an article you want to read, click "Full-Text @ Utah State" or [PDF] if one is available.

full text at USU link highlighted

This will take you immediately to the full-text of the article, or it will take you to the library tool ArticleLinker.

ArticleLinker checks for the article by searching all the library's databases.

7. When it's finished finding the article, the below page will pop up. Click the blue link in the middle of the screen, or scroll down to the giant green button.

click to view title link highlighted