Google Scholar FAQ |
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What is Google Scholar?
What areas of scholarly research are covered by Google Scholar?
What are the benefits of setting the Google Scholar preferences for Library Links to UNLV?
How do I set the preferences for Library Links to UNLV?
What does 'Cited by' mean?
Can I search within a specific journal or search for articles written by a particular author?
Why do some titles have links to abstracts and/or full text and others do not?
Why am I being asked to pay to access a full text article?
I'm not finding the information I need. Where else can I search for online full-text documents?
Where can I get more help?
What is Google Scholar?
Google Scholar searches for scholarly materials such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from broad areas of research. Google Scholar searches a variety of undisclosed academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. The full text of many items is freely available online, although in some instances abstracts with links to pay-per-view interlibrary loan are displayed.
While we encourage you to try Google Scholar, keep in mind that this software is 'in Beta.' Beta status indicates that Google Scholar is still in development, and you may therefore encounter some inconsistencies or peculiarities. Databases found on the Find Articles and More page will let you search scholarly information with specialized search tools designed to help you retrieve exactly what you need.
Google ScholarT is a trademark of Google Inc.
What areas of scholarly research are covered by Google Scholar?
Google Scholar searches a specific subset of Google's index and covers a wide range of academic content areas; however coverage appears to be strongest in science and technology, and weakest in the humanities. Just as with Google's standard Web Search, Google Scholar ranks and lists results according to how relevant they are to the search query. The most relevant references should theoretically appear at the top of the page.
What are the benefits of setting the Google Scholar preferences for Library Links to UNLV?
A "Get Text from UNLV" link will appear next to the title of an article when UNLV has online subscription access. You will also have the ability to check UNLV Libraries' print holdings for some items using the "Check UNLV holdings" link.
How do I set the preferences for Library Links to UNLV?
From the Google Scholar Preferences page, search for UNLV. After you search, check the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries (Get Text from UNLV) box. If you are not working on a computer on the UNLV campus, you will be asked to enter your barcode number to get access to articles that are part of UNLV's collection.
What does 'Cited by' mean?
Clicking the 'Cited by' link will display a list of articles and documents that have cited the document originally retrieved in the search. This makes it possible to uncover other documents related by topic or subject to the original document. However, Google Scholar only includes articles that are indexed within its database, and this is a much smaller subset of scholarly articles than found in some other UNLV-subscribed databases. Some databases that include citation-based searching, and that may yield more comprehensive results, include:
To find items cited in the bibliographies of books, try Google Book Search. This tool lets you find your search term in the full text of books, but it will not let you view entire books online. It will show you a few pages surrounding your search hits and link you to an online bookstore. Check the Library Catalog to see if UNLV owns a copy of a book you find in Google Book Search.
Can I search within a specific journal or search for articles written by a particular author?
Yes! Use Google Scholar's Advanced Search to search by author, publication, and date. Increase the accuracy and effectiveness of Google Scholar searches by checking out Advanced Scholar Search Tips.
Why do some titles have links to abstracts and/or full text and others do not?
Search results may include citations [CITATION], books [BOOK], PDFs [PDF] and PostScript documents [PS]. PDF and PostScript documents will have clickable title links that point to abstracts or full text, but citations and books will not.
Citations are items that have been extracted from the references, footnotes or bibliographies of documents indexed by Google Scholar. They typically do not have clickable links, but the citation usually gives you enough information to track down the item if you want to read it. Clicking on 'Web Search' will start a search for the citation using the standard Google search engine - this can help you determine the title of the book or journal the article was published in if it is abbreviated in the citation.
You can use the Library Catalog (for books) or the list of UNLV Print and Online Journal Subscriptions (for journals) to see if UNLV has access to the item being cited. For more hints on tracking down a copy of the journal with the article you want, see the Find Journals page.
Books appear in search results when a document indexed by Google Scholar references a book. Google Scholar creates a book result, but doesn't link to the actual book. If you have set UNLV as your Library Links preference, the "Check UNLV holdings" link will appear, allowing you to search the UNLV Library Catalog or put in a interlibrary loan request to borrow an item from another library. A 'Web Search' will start a search using the standard Google search engine, and will often lead to Amazon and other commercial sites where books may be purchased.
Why am I being asked to pay to access a full-text article?
Some of the links in Google Scholar will lead to full-text documents located at publishers' pay-per-view web sites. UNLV students, faculty and staff do not need to pay for access to many of these items. If you have set your Library Links preference to UNLV, the "Get Text from UNLV" link will appear for all articles that UNLV pays for access to. If no "Get Text from UNLV" link appears, you can use the "Check UNLV Holdings" link to find out if UNLV has a print subscription to that journal or to request a copy of the article from UNLV Libraries Interlibrary Loan.
I'm not finding the information I need. Where else can I search for online full-text documents?
Use the Find Articles and More page to choose a database by subject. Listed below are some popular databases that offer complete articles (requires UNLV authentication):
Where can I get more help?
Having difficulty finding what you need? There are many ways for you to get help!