How to find the best articles on Google Scholar?

When you're doing a TCC or simply need reliable information about a topic, many turn to Google. However, he has a specialized tool for this, Google Scholar, and here we will teach you how to find the best articles there!

Read our guide to learn everything about the platform, how to use it and how to find exactly what you are looking for.

1. What is Google Scholar?

A completely free search service offered by Google, Google Scholar indexes entire texts or metadata of academic literature from the most varied newspapers, in different formats and in any discipline.

In 2004, it was released in beta. In the 16 years since then, Google Scholar has become a phenomenal service through which you can find all the best scientific articles, books, theses, abstracts, dissertations, pre-publication libraries and much more.

Although there is no official number the size of the platform's database, researchers estimate that it has around 389 million documents, articles, citations and patents, making it the largest academic search tool in the world.

The main focus of criticism is the fact that Google does not have an effective newspaper verification process that it includes in the results, which ends up meaning that it is possible to find many unreliable or even predatory sources.

Functionalities

You can obviously find the best articles on Google Scholar. In addition, the platform provides many other functions for its users, which make it truly the best.

• You can search for academic information in any language from anywhere in the world gathered;
• It is possible to explore related works, citations, authors and publications;
• Easily find complete documents through the virtual library;
• Always stay up to date with the latest news from the research areas that interest you most;
• Find out who is citing your publications when creating a public profile;
• Have all documents ranked in the same way as researchers do, with the most reliable sources always appearing at the top of the results;
• Create your own virtual library where you can always store and find the articles that are most interesting to you.

2. How to find the best articles on Google Scholar?

Now that you are aware of what Google Scholar really is and why it is the most recommended, we will teach you how to use it fully, in order to find exactly what you are looking for.

How to use?

We will then teach you how to use Google Scholar to find the best articles. The first step is to go to the official website of the platform through the link in one of the internet browsers on the computer or on your smartphone with Android or iPhone. There, you will see a very familiar interface, similar to the Google search homepage.

To perform the search, simply enter the term to be found to receive all the results that the search term has. It is also possible to filter the search and change how the results are shown to you by the menu on the left:

• Filter by date: the search will show you, by default, results on any date. This can be changed by selecting specific years or entering periods;
• Change the rating: Results will be ordered by relevance using the criteria that Google finds best. If you want, you can change this so that they are ordered by date;
• Change the language: Your search results will be shown in any language. It is possible to change this so that only results in Portuguese are shown, so that you understand them without having to use Google Translate;
• You can include or exclude patents and citations from the results by checking or unchecking the boxes.

Advanced search

To find the best articles and results, it is highly recommended to use advanced search to further refine your results. To use it, it is necessary to open the menu represented by three lines in the corner of the screen and then click on "Advanced Search".

The following options for refining your search results are in it:

• Find articles:
  • With all the words: in this option, the results will contain all the words written;
  • With the exact phrase: here, the results will necessarily have the exact phrase you wrote, without any changes;
  • With at least one of the words: here, the results shown will have at least ONE of the words searched, and may contain all, but not necessarily;
  • Without the words: in this search mode, the results WILL HAVE NONE of the words you typed here;
  • Where my words occur: it is possible to define if you want your search terms to be mandatorily in the title or if they can be present anywhere on the page, be it title or body.
• View articles by: through this box, the search will be limited to only authors whose names are written here;
• View articles published in: through this, the results will be restricted to magazines and newspapers with a name that corresponds to what you wrote;
• Display articles dated between: hereby, the results shown will be delimited between two years you have entered.

My library

If you found the articles on Google Scholar you wanted, you can add them to your library for easy access later. This can be done by clicking on the star icon below them. To see the library, just click on "My Library", just below your account image.

Configure alerts

Finally, you can also create and configure alerts on any search terms you want. To do this, you will have to click on the "Create Alert" on the left side of the screen. Then, just configure it, writing the term you want to receive notifications, the email you want to receive them and how many results in each alert!

What did you think of the guide on how to find the best articles on Google Scholar?

Leave in the comments your opinion about the platform and the guide, also saying if you prefer any other tool for your academic research. Also, check out how to deal with boredom in quarantine and the best activities to do at home and promote your well-being!