This document provides an overview of using Google and Google Scholar for research. It discusses the differences between Google and Google Scholar, with Google covering any information on the web while Google Scholar focuses specifically on academic research. The document outlines advanced search techniques for both tools, including using special search operators and limiting searches by date, file type, or site. Tips are provided on personalizing searches and evaluating source material found through Google Scholar.

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Google and Google Scholar for
Research Information
Tuesday, 26th February 2013
Presenter Karen Blakeman
karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk
Slides available at http://www.rba.co.uk/as/ and on
authorSTREAM and Slideshare
This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

2. Outline for the session
Google vs Google Scholar
Five things you need to know about Google
Advanced search techniques for research information
Google Scholar
Other specialist tools
Homework!
Top 10 Tips
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3. Google
Anything it can find on the web
Web sites, blogs, images, videos,
podcasts, PDFs, spreadsheets,
presentations, discussions
Sometimes includes articles from
Scholar at the top of the results
Author self archived repositories
(may NOT be included in Scholar)
Google Scholar
Research information, patents,
legislation (US) from known
publishers
Open access
Institutional repositories
Anything that is structured like an
academic paper
Separate from main Google
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4. Five things you need to know about Google
1. Google personalises your search
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Non-personalised search Personalised search

5. Five things you need to know about Google
Personalises search based on
– location
– past search history
– past browsing activity
– activity in other areas of Google e.g. YouTube, Google Reader
– content from contacts in your personal networks may be given
priority
– what you and others have ‘liked’, g+1
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6. “Un-personalise” your search
Chrome - New incognito window
FireFox - Tools, Start Private Browsing
Internet Explorer – Tools, InPrivate Browsing
Switch off web/search history
Log out of your Google account
Clear cookies
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7. Five things you need to know about Google
2. Google automatically looks for variations on your terms
and omits terms
To force an exact match and inclusion of a term in a search prefix
it with ‘intext:’
UK public transport intext:biodiesel statistics
“..” around terms does not always work
Verbatim – runs your search exactly as you have typed it in
Google Scholar – does not drop terms
Google Scholar – can still use ‘+’ before a term to force an exact
match
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8. Google Verbatim
Run your search
On the results page select Search tools, All results, Verbatim
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9. Five things you need to know about Google
3. Google web search does not search everything
Two indexes: main, default index and the supplemental index
(lower “quality” material)
Supplemental index may contain less popular, unusual,
specialist material
Supplemental index comes into play when Google thinks your
search has returned too few results
Using advanced search commands and Verbatim seems to
trigger a search in the supplemental index
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10. Five things you need to know about Google
4. Google changes its algorithms several hundred times a
year
Some changes are minor and barely noticeable, others are more
significant e.g. dropping search terms
How Google makes improvements to its search algorithm -
YouTube http://youtu.be/J5RZOU6vK4Q
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11. Five things you need to know about Google
5. We are all Google’s lab rats
Google constantly tests changes on users in “live experiments”
Just Testing: Google Users May See Up To A Dozen
Experiments : http://searchengineland.com/just-testing-google-
searchers-may-see-up-to-a-dozen-experiments-141570
Mostly minor effects on search but sometimes totally bizarre
results
– Google decides that coots are really lions
http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/02/12/google-decides-that-
coots-are-really-lions/
– Update on coots vs. lions
http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/02/21/update-on-coots-vs-
lions/
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12. What I see on my screen will not be what
you see on your screen, will not be what
your colleagues see on theirs, will not be
what your users see.
Google Scholar more consistent?
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13. Google commands
Speech marks around phrases or titles of articles
“Geochemical evaluation of flowback brine from
Marcellus gas wells”
Note: if Google finds no documents containing your phrase it will
ignore the speech marks
Verbatim – runs your search exactly as you have typed it
Search tools, All results, Verbatim (see earlier slide)
intext: before your term – term must be present and exactly as
you have typed it
UK public transport intext:biodiesel statistics
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14. Google commands
Think file format
– PDF for research documents, government reports, industry
papers
– ppt or pptx for presentations, tracking down an expert on a topic
– xls or xlsx for spreadsheets containing data
Use the advanced search screen or the filetype: command
zeolites environmental remediation filetype:pdf
nasa dark energy dark matter filetype:ppt
nasa dark energy dark matter filetype:pptx
annual average global temperature 1960..2012
filetype:xls
annual average global temperature 1960..2012
filetype:xlsx
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15. Google commands
Site search
For searching single large sites, or groups of sites by type for
example academic, government
Use advanced search screen or site: command
marcellus gas wells hydraulic fracturing
site:psu.edu
marcellus gas wells hydraulic fracturing
site:edu
shale gas hydraulic fracturing earthquakes
site:ac.uk
shale gas hydraulic fracturing site:gov.uk
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16. Google commands
Numeric range search
Anything to do with numbers and quantities: years,
temperatures, weights, distances, prices etc
Use the advanced search screen or type in your two numbers
separated by two full stops as part of your search
world oil demand forecasts 2015..2030
world oil demand forecasts 80..100 mb/d
2015..2030
toblerone 1..5 kg
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17. Google commands
Words in the title – can be single words or phrases
Ensures subject is the main focus of the article
Use advanced search screen or intitle:
intitle:”diabetic retinopathy”
Words in the URL – can be single words or phrases
Use advanced search screen or inurl:
inurl:”diabetic retinopathy”
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18. Google search options
Date
Restrict your results to information that has been published
within the last hour, day, week, month, year or your own date
range
Search tools, Any time and select an option
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19. Google search options
Reading level
Changes the type of material that is returned
Run the search and from the menu above the results select
Search tools, All results and then Reading level
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20. Google search options
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21. Google Scholar
http://scholar.google.com/
“Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly
literature. 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 web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant
work across the world of scholarly research”.
• Search all scholarly literature from one convenient place
• Explore related works, citations, authors, and publications
• Locate the complete document through your library or on the web
• Keep up with recent developments in any area of research
• Check who's citing your publications, create a public author profile
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22. Google Scholar
Does not cover all key journals in all subjects – no source list
Top publications for subjects and languages under Metrics link
on home page or
http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?view_op=top_venues&hl=en
Scholar indexes the full text but you may have to pay to view the
whole article
Groups different versions of an article together
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23. Google Scholar
Includes open access material, pre-prints, institutional
repositories (but not necessarily author self archived
repositories)
Includes material that is NOT peer reviewed but is structured
and looks like an academic article (title in large font, authors,
affiliations, abstract, keywords, citations)
Pre-prints and IR copies may differ from final published version –
charts and images may be redacted because of copyright
restrictions
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24. Google Scholar
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Does NOT use the publishers’ metadata
Date and author search looks in the area of the document where
those elements are usually found
Page numbers, part of an address, data item may be mistaken
for publication year
Sometimes gets the author wrong

25. Communicating with postgraduate research students: some
themes from the library literature
http://www.chuukaku.com/blog/2013/01/communication-with-
pgr.html
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26. Jacsó, Péter. “Metadata mega mess in Google Scholar.” Online
Information Review 34.1 (2010): 175-191.
Jacsó, Péter. Newswire Analysis: Google Scholar’s Ghost Authors, Lost
Authors, and Other Problems [Online] 24 September 2009 [Accessed 4
February 2013.] http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6698580.html
Jacsó, Péter. “Google Scholar Author Citation Tracker: is it too little, too
late? “Online Information Review 36.1 (2012): 126-141.
Jacsó, Péter. “Using Google Scholar for journal impact factors and the
h-index in nationwide publishing assessments in academia–siren songs
and air-raid sirens.” Online Information Review 36.3 (2012): 462-478.
Jacso – Savvy Searching Columns, Online Information
Review http://www2.hawaii.edu/~jacso/savvy-mcb.htm [Accessed 4
February 2013]
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27. Gray, Jerry E., et al. Scholarish: Google Scholar and its Value to the
Sciences. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship. [Online]
Summer 2012. [Cited: 11 February 2013.] http://www.istl.org/12-
summer/article1.html
Hamilton, Michelle C, Janz, Margaret M and Hauser, Alexandra. Can
librarians trust resources found on Google Scholar? Yes… and no. Impact
of Social Sciences: Maximizing the impact of academic research . [Online]
17 September 2012. [Cited: 10 January 2013.]
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/09/17/can-science-
students-and-researchers-trust-resources-found-on-google-scholar-yes-
and-no/
Kramer, Bianca and Sieverts, Eric. Beyond coverage #ili2012. Slideshare.
[Online] 27 October 2012. [Cited: 10 January 2013.]
http://www.slideshare.net/bmkramer/beyond-coverage-ili2012
HLWIKI International. Google scholar bibliography. UBC HealthLib Wiki - A
Knowledge-Base for Health Librarians. [Online] 1 February 2013. [Cited: 11
February 2013.]
http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Google_scholar_bibliography
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28. Google Scholar advanced search commands
Use advanced search screen or commands as follows:
+ sign before a search term to force an exact match, for example +norne
“....” around phrases for example “environmental remediation”
intitle: to search for a single word in the title, for example intitle:zeolites
environmental remediation
allintitle: to search for all of your terms in the title, for example
allintitle:zeolites environmental remediation
author: to search on an author’s name, for example
zeolites environmental remediation author:rhodes
site: to limit your search to specific institution for example
marcellus shale site:psu.edu
Commands can be combined for a precise search, for example
author:wolford site:psu.edu allintitle:marcellus shale
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29. h-Index
h-index developed in 2005 by Jorge Hirsch, University of California in
San Diego
Attempts to quantify productivity and apparent scientific impact of a
scientist.
“A scientist has index h if h of his/her Np papers have at least h
citations each, and the other (Np − h) papers have no more than h
citations each”.
For example, an h-index of 20 means that the researcher has 20
papers each of which has been cited 20 or more times
Calculated by Scopus, WoS, Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic
Search (?) but only for those papers within the database
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30. g-Index
g-index - distribution of citations received by a given
researcher's publications
Devised by Leo Egghe in 2006
“Given a set of articles ranked in decreasing order of the
number of citations that they received, the g-index is the
(unique) largest number such that the top g articles received
(together) at least g2 citations.”
g-index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-index
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31. Other indices
i10 Index
i10-index is the number of publications with at least 10 citations
e-Index
PLOS ONE: The e-Index, Complementing the h-Index for
Excess Citations
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.
pone.0005429
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32. Google Scholar h-index
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Author creates a profile and claims papers

33. Google Scholar h-index
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ScholarHIndexCalculator - mWiki
https://www.mat.unical.it/ianni/wiki/ScholarHIndexCalculator
Add-on for Chrome (development of new features stopped
for Firefox)

34. Google Scholar - Scholarometer
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Scholarometer: Browser Extension and Web Service for Academic
Impact Analysis http://scholarometer.indiana.edu/
Firefox and Chrome

35. Google Scholar - Scholarometer
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36. Google Scholar – Publish or Perish
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Publish or Perish - Anne-Wil Harzing http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm
Desktop application

37. Microsoft Academic Search
http://academic.research.microsoft.com/
Journal articles, pre-prints, post-prints, conference proceedings,
reports and white papers
Free to use but the full text of some papers can only be viewed
on payment of a fee to the original journal publisher
Automatically computes author g and h index
Author may have several different profiles and articles may be
assigned to wrong author
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38. Microsoft Academic Search
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Note: G and H index have now
disappeared – uncertain as to
whether they’ll return

39. Microsoft Academic Search
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40. Institutional repositories
BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine http://www.base-search.net/
CORE (COnnecting Repositories) http://core.kmi.open.ac.uk/search
DART-Europe E-theses Portal http://www.dart-europe.eu/basic-
search.php
Institutional Repository Search (IRS) http://irs.mimas.ac.uk/
Open DOAR http://opendoar.org/
RIAN - Pathways to Irish Research http://rian.ie
ROAR - Registry of Open Access Repositories http://roar.eprints.org/
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41. Specialist search tools for research information
ArXiv http://arxiv.org/
BioMed Central http://www.biomedcentral.com/
Chemistry Central http://www.chemistrycentral.com/
ChemSpider http://www.chemspider.com/
Deep Web Technologies
Mednar http://mednar.com/
Science.gov http://www.science.gov/
Science Research http://scienceresearch.com/
WorldWideScience http://worldwidescience.org/
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42. Specialist search tools for research information
Europe PubMed Central http://europepmc.org/
Mendeley http://www.mendeley.com/
Open Biology http://rsob.royalsocietypublishing.org/
PhilPapers: Online Research in Philosophy http://philpapers.org/
PubMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/
Scirus http://www.scirus.com/
TechXtra http://www.techxtra.ac.uk/
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