research papers for google scholar

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Publications

Google publishes hundreds of research papers each year. Publishing is important to us; it enables us to collaborate and share ideas with, as well as learn from, the broader scientific community. Submissions are often made stronger by the fact that ideas have been tested through real product implementation by the time of publication.

We believe the formal structures of publishing today are changing - in computer science especially, there are multiple ways of disseminating information.  We encourage publication both in conventional scientific venues, and through other venues such as industry forums, standards bodies, and open source software and product feature releases.

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Our researchers are often helping to define not just today's products but also tomorrow's.

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Couple big challenges with big resources and Google offers unprecedented research opportunities.

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How to Use Google Scholar for Research: A Complete Guide

To remain competitive, Research and Development (R&D) teams must utilize all of the resources available to them. Google Scholar can be a powerful asset for R&D professionals who are looking to quickly find relevant sources related to their project.  With its sophisticated search engine capabilities, advanced filtering options, and alert notifications, using Google Scholar for research allows teams to easily locate reliable information in an efficient manner. Want to learn how to use google scholar for research? This blog post will cover how to use google scholar for research, how R&D professionals can exploit the potential of Google Scholar to uncover novel discoveries related to their projects, as well as remain apprised of advancements in their area.

Table of Contents

What is Google Scholar?

Overview of google scholar, searching with google scholar, finding relevant sources with google scholar, exploring related topics, evaluating sources found on google scholar, staying up to date with google scholar alerts, faqs in relation to how to use google scholar for research, how do i use google scholar for research, can you use google scholar for research papers, why is it important to use google scholar for research, are google scholar articles credible.

Google Scholar is a powerful research platform that enables users to quickly find, access, and evaluate scholarly information. It provides easy access to academic literature from all disciplines, including books, journal articles, conference papers, and more. Google Scholar offers researchers a wide range of tools for searching the web for the relevant content as well as ways to keep up with new developments in their field.

Google Scholar i s an online search engine designed specifically for finding scholarly literature on the internet. Google Scholar provides access to a vast array of scholarly literature from renowned universities and publishers around the world, simplifying the process of locating relevant material on any subject. In addition to its comprehensive indexing capabilities, Google Scholar also includes advanced search features such as citation tracking and alert notifications when new results are published in your chosen areas of interest.

The platform makes it a breeze for users to traverse multiple facets of a given topic by providing them with an array of different filters they can apply when conducting searches – these include things such as author name or publication date range; language; type (e.g., book chapter vs journal article); source material (e.g., open access only); etc Moreover, many results found through this platform come equipped with full-text PDFs available for download – so you don’t have to worry about pesky paywalls blocking your path while doing research.

Google Scholar is an invaluable resource for research and development teams, offering quick access to a wealth of scholarly information. Utilizing the proper search approaches, you can quickly locate precisely what you need by employing Google Scholar. Let’s look now at how to refine your results with advanced search techniques.

Key Takeaway:  Google Scholar is a powerful research platform that gives researchers an array of tools to quickly locate, access and evaluate scholarly information. It provides users with advanced search features such as citation tracking and alert notifications, along with easy-to-apply filters for narrowing down results by author name or publication date range – making it the go-to tool for any researcher looking to cut through the noise.

Exploring with Google Scholar can be a useful approach to quickly locate applicable scholarly material. There are several different strategies that can be used to get the most out of this powerful tool.

Basic google scholar search strategies involve entering a few keywords or phrases into the search bar and then refining your results using filters, sorting options, and related topics. This method is ideal for those who require a rapid search of information without needing to expend an excessive amount of time researching exact terms, especially for those unfamiliar with searching databases such as Google Scholar. It’s also useful for those who don’t have a lot of experience in searching databases like Google Scholar. 

Advanced search strategies allow users to take advantage of more sophisticated features such as Boolean operators , wildcards, and phrase searches. These tools make it easier to narrow down results by specifying exactly what you’re looking for or excluding irrelevant sources from your search results. Advanced searchers should also pay attention to synonyms when crafting their queries since these can help broaden the scope of their searches while still providing relevant results.

Finally, refining your results is key in order to ensure that you only see sources that are truly relevant and authoritative on the topic at hand. Filters such as date range, publication type, language, author name, etc., can help refine your query so that only high-quality sources appear in your list of results. Sorting options provide users with the ability to prioritize documents, enabling them to quickly locate relevant materials without needing to review a large number of irrelevant ones. 

Utilizing Google Scholar can be advantageous for swiftly finding pertinent research materials, but it is essential to comprehend the search strategies and filters at hand in order to maximize your searches. By understanding how to identify keywords and phrases, explore related topics, and utilize sorting options and filters, you can ensure that you are finding all of the relevant sources for your research project. 

Key Takeaway:  Google Scholar is a great tool for quickly locating relevant research sources. Advanced searchers can make use of Boolean operators, wildcards and phrase searches to narrow down their results while basic search strategies such as entering keywords into the search bar work just fine too. Additionally, refining your results with filters and sorting options helps ensure that you only see high-quality sources related to your topic at hand.

Locating applicable materials via Google Scholar can be a challenging endeavor, particularly for those unfamiliar with the research process. To facilitate the research process, employing various strategies can expedite and refine the search for relevant sources through Google Scholar. 

Making use of keywords and phrases is a powerful method for finding pertinent sources on Google Scholar. It is important to identify key terms related to your topic or research question so you can narrow down the results. Additionally, using quotation marks around multiple words will allow you to get more precise results as it searches for exact matches instead of individual words within a phrase.

Exploring related topics helps provide additional context when researching on Google Scholar. This includes looking at previous studies conducted on similar topics or areas of interest, which provides further insight into potential sources available from other researchers’ work in the field. Utilizing tools such as co-citation analysis also allows users to explore how different authors have been cited together over time by providing visualizations based on their connections and relationships with each other through citations.

Utilizing filters and sorting options such as language, date range, publication type, etc., enables users to refine their search even further so they only receive results that match their specific criteria. Sorting options like relevance ranking or date published also make it easier for them to find what they need without having to sift through hundreds of irrelevant documents manually. By utilizing these features effectively, researchers can save valuable time when searching for relevant sources in Google Scholar since all the information they need will already be organized accordingly right away, saving them an hour’s worth of manual labor.

By utilizing Google Scholar, research teams can quickly and easily find relevant sources for their projects. With the next heading, we will explore how to evaluate these sources for credibility and authority.

Key Takeaway:  Utilizing the right keywords and phrases, exploring related topics, and utilizing filters are essential techniques for finding relevant sources quickly with Google Scholar. By taking advantage of the available features, you can swiftly and accurately pinpoint documents that meet your criteria.

To assess the reliability and authority of each source, consider factors such as the publication’s reputation, author credentials in the field, and when it was published. To do this, look for publications from reputable journals or authors with credentials in the field. Furthermore, consider when the source was issued – more modern pieces may be more pertinent and exact than older ones.

It is advantageous to be aware of the distinct kinds of publications that can appear in search results, such as scholarly articles, books, conference papers, and dissertations; each offering various degrees of precision and accuracy depending on their intent and target audience. 

For example, a book chapter may provide an overview of a topic while a peer-reviewed journal article will contain more detailed information backed up by research evidence. Similarly, conference papers are typically shorter summaries of research projects whereas dissertations offer comprehensive coverage including methodology and analysis results. Understanding these differences helps you identify which sources are most suitable for your needs when conducting research using Google Scholar.

Evaluating sources found on Google Scholar is an important step to ensure the credibility and accuracy of research results. By setting up alerts with Google Scholar, you can stay informed about new research findings and manage your subscriptions accordingly.

Maximize your research efforts with Google Scholar. Assess credibility & authority, pay attention to the date of publication & understand different types of publications. #ResearchTips #GoogleScholar Click to Tweet

Google Scholar is an invaluable tool for staying up to date with the latest research in your field. With its alert feature, you can easily set up notifications so that you’re always on top of new developments. Setting up alerts and managing them effectively will help ensure that you never miss a beat when it comes to relevant information.

Begin your research by utilizing Google Scholar’s sophisticated search features such as keyword and phrase searches, sorting results according to relevance or date of publication, and excluding unrelated sources. Once you’ve identified the most pertinent topics related to your research interests, set up alerts for each one by clicking on the bell icon in the upper right corner of the page. This will allow Google Scholar to send notifications whenever new content is published about those specific topics.

When setting up alerts in Google Scholar, make sure that they are tailored specifically toward what matters most to you – this could include certain authors or journals whose work has particular relevance to your own research projects. You can also adjust how often these alerts are sent (daily or weekly) depending on how frequently new material is being published within those fields of study. Additionally, if there are any other sources outside of Google Scholar which may contain useful information (such as blogs), consider adding their RSS feeds into your alert system too so that all relevant updates appear in one place.

Finally, don’t forget to manage existing alerts regularly; this means keeping track of which ones are still relevant and deleting any no longer needed from time to time (this helps keep clutter down). Additionally, try experimenting with different combinations/filters within each alert until you find what works best for keeping yourself informed without getting overwhelmed with notifications.

Key Takeaway:  Utilize Google Scholar to stay up-to-date on the latest research in your field – create tailored alerts for specific topics and authors, adjust frequency of notifications as needed, and manage existing alerts regularly. Stay ahead of the curve by gathering all pertinent news in one location.

Google Scholar is a great tool for conducting research. It provides access to millions of scholarly articles, books, and other sources from across the web. Google scholar works by entering keywords related to your topic into the search bar at the top of the page to quickly locate relevant scholarly articles, books, and other sources from across the web. Then narrow down your results using filters such as date range or publication type.

Finally, skim through the abstracts and full texts to pinpoint useful information for your research project.

Yes, Google Scholar is a great resource for research papers. It offers access to an extensive range of scholarly literature from journals, books, and conference proceedings. The search engine provides a convenient way to locate the most recent research in any area by entering keywords or phrases.

Advanced capabilities, such as citation monitoring, can be utilized to track the latest citations of one’s own or others’ work.

Google Scholar is an invaluable tool for research, as it provides access to a vast range of scholarly literature from around the world. It allows researchers to quickly and easily search through millions of publications and journals in order to find relevant information.

Google Scholar also offers the ability to trace connections between different works, allowing researchers to stay abreast of recent developments in their field. With its user-friendly interface, Google Scholar makes researching easier than ever before.

Yes, Google Scholar articles are credible. They provide access to a wide range of academic literature from reliable sources such as peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. Expert scrutiny has been conducted to guarantee the accuracy and excellence of the articles before they are put up on Google Scholar. Additionally, each article includes information about its authorship and citation count which can help readers assess their credibility further.

Google Scholar provides a convenient way to uncover pertinent material, assess the quality of these sources with ease, and be informed about novel advancements in your area through notifications.  Thus, R&D supervisors should know how to use google scholar for research. Also, R&D supervisors considering utilizing Google Scholar for investigation ought to recall that this apparatus should not supplant customary techniques, for example, peer survey or manual searching; rather it should supplement them.

With its powerful search capabilities and ability to keep researchers informed about their fields of interest, using Google Scholar for research can save time while providing more accurate results than ever before.

Unlock the power of research with Cypris . Our platform provides rapid time to insights, enabling R&D and innovation teams to quickly access data sources for their projects.

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Google Scholar Search Strategies

• About Google Scholar
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Using Google Scholar for Research

Google Scholar is a powerful tool for researchers and students alike to access peer-reviewed papers. With Scholar, you are able to not only search for an article, author or journal of interest, you can also save and organize these articles, create email alerts, export citations and more. Below you will find some basic search tips that will prove useful.

This page also includes information on Google Scholar Library - a resource that allows you to save, organize and manage citations - as well as information on citing a paper on Google Scholar.

Search Tips

• Locate Full Text
• Sort by Date
• Related Articles
• Court Opinions
• Email Alerts
• Advanced Search

Abstracts are freely available for most of the articles and UMass Lowell holds many subscriptions to journals and online resources. The first step is make sure you are affiliated with the UML Library on and off campus by Managing your Settings, under Library Links. 

When searching in Google Scholar here are a few things to try to get full text:

• click a library link, e.g., "Full-text @ UML Library", to the right of the search result;
• click a link labeled [PDF] to the right of the search result;
• click "All versions" under the search result and check out the alternative sources;
• click "More" under the search result to see if there's an option for full-text;
• click "Related articles" or "Cited by" under the search result to explore similar articles.

Your search results are normally sorted by relevance, not by date. To find newer articles, try the following options in the left sidebar:

• click "Sort by date" to show just the new additions, sorted by date;  If you use this feature a lot, you may also find it useful to setup email alerts to have new results automatically sent to you.
• click the envelope icon to have new results periodically delivered by email.

Note: On smaller screens that don't show the sidebar, these options are available in the dropdown menu labeled "Any time" right below the search button .

The Related Articles option under the search result can be a useful tool when performing research on a specific topic. 

After clicking you will see articles from the same authors and with the same keywords.

You can select the jurisdiction from either the search results page or the home page as well; simply click "select courts". You can also refine your search by state courts or federal courts. 

To quickly search a frequently used selection of courts, bookmark a search results page with the desired selection. 

 How do I sign up for email alerts?

Do a search for the topic of interest, e.g., "M Theory"; click the envelope icon in the sidebar of the search  results page; enter your email address, and click " Create alert ". Google will periodically email you newly published papers that match your search criteria. You can use any email address for this; it does not need to be a Google Account. 

If you want to get alerts from new articles published in a specific journal; type in the name of this journal in the search bar and create an alert like you would a keyword. 

How do I get notified of new papers published by my colleagues, advisors or professors?

First, do a search for your their name, and see if they have a Citations profile. If they do, click on it, and click the "Follow new articles" link in the right sidebar under the search box.

If they don't have a profile, do a search by author, e.g., [author:s-hawking], and click on the mighty envelope in the left sidebar of the search results page. If you find that several different people share the same name, you may need to add co-author names or topical keywords to limit results to the author you wish to follow.

How do I change my alerts?

If you created alerts using a Google account, you can manage them all on the "Alerts" page . 

From here you can create, edit or delete alerts. Select cancel under the actions column to unsubscribe from an alert. 

This will pop-open the advanced search menu

Here you can search specific words/phrases as well as for author, title and journal. You can also limit your search results by date.

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Reference management. Clean and simple.

The top list of academic search engines

1. Google Scholar

4. science.gov, 5. semantic scholar, 6. baidu scholar, get the most out of academic search engines, frequently asked questions about academic search engines, related articles.

Academic search engines have become the number one resource to turn to in order to find research papers and other scholarly sources. While classic academic databases like Web of Science and Scopus are locked behind paywalls, Google Scholar and others can be accessed free of charge. In order to help you get your research done fast, we have compiled the top list of free academic search engines.

Google Scholar is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only lets you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free but also often provides links to full-text PDF files.

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles
• Abstracts: only a snippet of the abstract is available
• Related articles: ✔
• References: ✔
• Cited by: ✔
• Links to full text: ✔
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, RIS, BibTeX

BASE is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany. That is also where its name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles (contains duplicates)
• Abstracts: ✔
• Related articles: ✘
• References: ✘
• Cited by: ✘
• Export formats: RIS, BibTeX

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open-access research papers. For each search result, a link to the full-text PDF or full-text web page is provided.

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles
• Links to full text: ✔ (all articles in CORE are open access)
• Export formats: BibTeX

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need anymore to query all those resources separately!

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles and reports
• Links to full text: ✔ (available for some databases)
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX (available for some databases)

Semantic Scholar is the new kid on the block. Its mission is to provide more relevant and impactful search results using AI-powered algorithms that find hidden connections and links between research topics.

• Coverage: approx. 40 million articles
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX

Although Baidu Scholar's interface is in Chinese, its index contains research papers in English as well as Chinese.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 100 million articles
• Abstracts: only snippets of the abstract are available
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX

RefSeek searches more than one billion documents from academic and organizational websites. Its clean interface makes it especially easy to use for students and new researchers.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 1 billion documents
• Abstracts: only snippets of the article are available
• Export formats: not available

Consider using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with Google Scholar and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

Google Scholar is an academic search engine, and it is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only let's you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free, but also often provides links to full text PDF file.

Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature developed at the Allen Institute for AI. Sematic Scholar was publicly released in 2015 and uses advances in natural language processing to provide summaries for scholarly papers.

BASE , as its name suggest is an academic search engine. It is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany and that's where it name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers. For each search result a link to the full text PDF or full text web page is provided.

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need any more to query all those resources separately!

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Google Scholar: Every Researcher's Go-To Guide

Table of Contents

When Google was officially launched as a web-based search engine, none of us would have thought it could address academicians' research discovery problems via "Google Scholar."

The launch of Google Scholar in November 2004 took the scholarly communication world by storm by authenticating the true meaning of Google, i.e., "largest information resource."

At first, researchers worldwide acknowledged this new product of Google intended to empower research by transforming the research-finding process. Over the years, with the advent of gaming, inaccurate citation counts, no periodic data updates, and other platform-centric concerns ascended gradually. As a result, many users started questioning the reliability of the platform. Consequently, some users request feature updates with advanced search options or services, while others dig into the sources' credibility. Meanwhile, the budding research scholars are still wondering if it is a reliable academic search engine or if they should rely on other exhaustive search engines like Web of Science, Scopus, and SciSpace.

To help all the researchers, including students, authors, and professors across academia, we have created a comprehensive guide on using Google Scholar. It provides a synopsis of the platform, centralizing its features, limitations, strengths, weaknesses, and future pursuits.

Introduction to Google Scholar searches

It indexes all scientific papers, including full-text and subscription-based content from major academic publishers, universities, digital repositories, and other commercial publishers. It also includes grey literature that is available online. In short, it helps you find relevant scientific works that hasten your scholarly projects.

It covers a wide range of research subjects, including STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine) and Social studies (Education and Counseling) in a broader spectrum. On the other hand, it comprises a modest amount of research content or consists of the fewest papers subjected to Humanities (Religion and Biblical Studies). In addition to scholarly literature, it indexes legal documents, as court opinions, case law reports, and patent data about the law.

How does the Google Scholar crawling work?

Google Scholar uses a web crawler or a web robot to crawl the particular journal's consented content from the Online Computer Library Center's (OCLC) Open WorldCat and the National Library of Medicine's PubMed.

Major publishers or universities deliberately want to get crawled by this database. Because of the readership and significant discoverability that the ingested content receives by getting indexed in the search engine.

History of Google Scholar

The idea of building a dedicated scholarly search engine arose amidst a discussion between two tech guys, Alex Verstak and Anurag Acharya, on their sabbatical leave. The agenda behind their sabbatical leave was to identify an approach or a way to rank scholarly papers higher and easier on Google scholar search itself. Initially, their idea wasn't just to find an indexing database but to feed the academic community with intent queries with quality research reports. Accordingly, they built an internal prototype. The prototype witnessed constructive feedback, and people tried and acknowledged the results. And that's how it turned out to be "Scholar," aka Google Scholar search engine. To reinforce easy and unrestricted access to scientific knowledge, they decided to roll out the beta version of it in November 2004. The publicizing strategy included the slogan "Stand on the shoulders of giants" from Bernard of Chartres, quoted by Isaac Newton. The saying unveils the fact that using Google Scholar to search will be the foundation of your future scientific innovation and discovery.

As the product was familiarized, the inventors released new features to help research scholars worldwide. Thus, they introduced the following series of updates to the platform.

• 2006: A citation importing feature was enforced to support the reference database, such as RefWorks, RefMan, EndNote, and BibTeX.
• 2007: A program was initiated to digitize and host journal articles online in agreement with their publishers. It was an effort to distinguish Google Books that indexes the older literature without the metadata .
• 2011: The "Scholar" was detached from Google to promote a smoother user transition from the home page to its landing page.
• 2012: They reached a significant milestone by providing the authors a platform to create their profiles under "Scholar Citations profiles" and start tracking their research articles' metrics.
• 2013 : Introduced "Google Scholar library" that allows researchers to save their search results, or it can be called the authors' personalized collection tab for their references.

What is the Ranking Algorithm of the Google Scholar?

Unlike other search engines, it searches for a publication using a combined ranking algorithm guarded by multiple factors, including relevance, citation counts, and publication date. Predominantly the algorithm scale is drawn toward citation counts and relevance.

For example, when people search for any particular keyword, author, or year, it shows relevant papers based on the highest citation counts, which makes it the primary ranking factor.

But, the algorithm rituals don't always stick to the citation counts. It works "the way researchers do — weighing the full text of each article, the author, the publication in which the article appears, and how often the piece has been cited in other scholarly literature." So, besides citation counts, it also gives prominence to the article title length and other factors similar to a researcher's search mechanism.

How does Google Scholar choose and include the sources?

A study compared Web of Science and Scopus databases with Google Scholar search to review the approach of coverage and inclusion of the scholarly content.

Web of Science and Scopus uses a selective approach based on specific criteria and crawls only the appropriate or selective, scholarly articles and academic resources, from the web. It follows a comprehensive and automated inclusion technique and indexes academic documents that its robot crawlers can locate on the web. As a result, these databases only include a small portion of the social sciences and humanities, non-English literature, and scholarly texts while majorly focusing on science journal articles. Conversely, the inclusive and unsupervised methodology used by Google Scholar indexes all the academic literature available on the web without any sieving of the sources. Thus, it maximizes the coverage and discoverability of both the authors and papers. However, this could also be one of the shortcomings of the database because of the lack of source evaluation. But, it still plays a vital role in boosting the discoverability of all papers.

What are the advantages of the Google Scholar search engine?

It helps us retrieve research articles and aids in inventing research works for the advancement of science.   The advantages of using Google Scholar include:

• It is relatively easy to use and user-friendly , retrieving desired user-intent documents in no time.
• It allows the author to search for all forms of scholarly literature on various topics, including grey literature like conference proceedings.
• The results surpass the search-intent query keyword , i.e., it provides additional and other keyword-associated information and helps the user to learn more.
• You can access an abundance of knowledge at your fingertips.
• You can explore other authors' profiles, publications, citations, and related publications.
• Find the whole document or shortlist it in your library.
• You can stay up to date with the latest scientific development in your research area by creating alerts (which is located on the left column of the website).
• Create your academic profile and keep track of your research works citations.

How Google Scholar helps publishers?

Google had a superior association with the publishers in indexing their web content even before the launch of this scholarly indexing database. However, convincing the academic community and publishers to get their journal content crawled on the search engine was still challenging for the entire team.

The inflow of academic queries helped the team convince publishers about the traffic they would receive when their content gets indexed on Google Scholar. That way, it helps publishers to boost the visibility and accessibility rates of the content worldwide by making them readily discoverable. Since then, all the peer-reviewed articles, theses, preprints, abstracts, and technical reports from across multiple academic disciplines have been indexed by the platform in collaboration with publishers.

What is Academic Search Engine Optimization?

Like how search engine optimization works by making the web content rank higher on the search engine and search result page, ASEO is the process of optimizing scholarly papers to rank higher on the academic search engine. Most publishers and organizations are adopting ASEO to help them rank higher and increase the visibility of the research article. As a researcher/author, optimizing your papers for academic search engines is crucial. If you are a newbie to ASEO and want to gain more insights into ASEO; you can refer to the article " Optimizing Scholarly Articles For Academic Search Engines — Every Researcher's SEO Guide ," co-authored by Dr. Lisa Schillan.

What is the difference between Google, Google Books, and Google Scholar?

How to create a Google Scholar profile?

Creating a profile helps both the searchers and the readers in terms of disseminating knowledge. Researchers can keep track of their citations and h-index, increasing the paper's discoverability. Alternatively, readers can easily find relevant literature on the search engine. It also helps researchers showcase their publications and access Google Scholar and citations to the readers directly without hassle. The Google Scholar profile creation is easier and involves five simple steps to get an official account here.

1. Set up your account

Visit scholar.google.com , and click on the "My Profile" option at the top left of the page. It takes you to the next page and asks you to input your Name, Affiliation, Email address, Areas of interest, and university homepage (however, it is not mandatory); you can skip it.

2. Add your publications

You can either select "Group" searches or "Articles" by looking into the research articles listed. Since Google Scholar has been indexing all the scholarly works, it might be easier for you to choose your documents and add them to your publications.

Please note if you have selected the "Groups," there are chances the group might have articles that you do not author. You can delete them later manually once you have completed creating your account.

3. Make your profile "Public"

You're almost there! You need to pick the convenient options that work best for you regarding your article updates, profile visibility, and follow-by email. It's advisable to add a profile picture and make it public to increase your profile's visibility, discoverability, and publications. Note: You can change your profile visibility from "public" to "private" anytime. There you go! Your profile is completed, and you officially have your scholar account. So, you now have the profile; what next? Time to explore its features and specifications! Let's get to know them!

What are the features and specifications of Google Scholar?

It provides a decent set of features that aids in the author's publication primary discovery, management, and organization process.

The major features include:

• Save/My library: This allows you to save the relevant articles to your library.
• Cite: You can use the "Cite" feature to cite your current or future research works
• Cited by: By far, it is the quickest and fastest way to find out the citations of the research paper. It only shares the analytics of the times the research paper is cited in other works and provides access to the abstracts of the other articles that have cited this research paper.
• Related articles: Helps you find similar articles on your topic of interest
• All versions: As a reader, using this feature, you can explore the author's past versions of the research paper and keenly refer to the latest updates of the article.
• Create Alert: You can create instant alerts for the intended topics.
• Auto-add: It automatically updates all your latest publications to your profile. However, this can also lead to author ambiguity and show the wrong publications on your profile. But don't despair; you can manually remove unwanted articles from your profile.
• Add Co-authors: You can also add your co-authors who have already created their profiles on the platform and keep your profile and publications updated.

What is Google Scholar Button? (GS Button)

Google Scholar Button is a browser extension or plugin that provides direct access to the search Google Scholar from any webpage. It is a search button browser extension that helps you find and access google scholar for full-text research articles on the web page or in university libraries.

How does the Google Scholar Chrome Extension work?

• Install or add the extension to your browser.
• Search for any research articles using partial match keywords or exact phrase keywords on Google Scholar or on the university library database.
• Now, select the article title and click the GS button to find the article.
• You will get the article that you can save for later or click on the cite quotes option, choose the preferred references style, and export it in the required format.

The extension works differently for On-campus library links and Off-campus library links. You can customize the settings (click on the gear icon) to choose library links, and use the extension. It's easier to find open-access articles when you are on campus. However, linking your library to the Google Scholar library or search engine while off-campus would be most beneficial. Also, library links connect to Google Scholar also work great when you are on-campus. So, how do the students link their universities to google scholar searches or the search engine? Let's unfold!

How to link your University school library to Google Scholar?

The advantages are more rhetorical when you link your university library to Google Scholar, as you can gain unrestricted access to the full-length articles and other e-materials or e-resources registered on your university database. If your university repository has cached the paywalled or subscription-based articles, you can quickly get access for free with your university ID. Here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Open Scholar Homepage >> Go to Menu >> Jump over to "Google Scholar Settings."

Step 2: Click on the "Library Links" option >> Next to the library links enter your University name >> Check the box next to your university name. Don't forget to check the Open WorldCat box to access all the papers listed in your database.

Step 3: Click save

Step 4: Go back to the search bar >> Type any topic or article >> Shows the results.

Step 5: On the right-hand side of the result, you will find a link to the paper that is accessible from your university library (This is not the case for all the articles, for a few, you might not get any link mentioned, but you could use the ">> (more)" option to find it or access it)

Step 6: You will be redirected to your university library database upon clicking the link. Login using the credentials and find the paper!

More or less, the linking procedure remains the same for most university records. However, even after multiple attempts, if you did not get the article, you can request the article from your University; they will help you find or get it from another source!

Remember, linking your University to this database will not provide access to all the e-resources. For subject-specific or complex and in-depth paper discovery, you must explore subject-specific or individual subject databases at your University.

Few quick examples:

The Catholic University of America

The University of Texas at San Antonio

How to connect Google Scholar to the Walden Library

How to find articles on Google Scholar?

We all know that Google Scholar links most research papers to commercial journals or publishers. Once you have accessed the platform via Google Scholar login and when you search for an article on the query bar, the search results there would consist of only the abstract of the paper and citation information with a link redirecting to its publisher. Thus, the search results would predominantly include paywalled papers.

If you are accessing it from your University, here is how you find the research paper:

On-Campus: It's easier to search google scholar than ever; Login to your university, connect google scholar repository, open the link https://scholar.google.com and start searching! You will find the desired or interesting papers.

Off-Campus: First, you must link your University to the Google Scholar account. Then, use google scholar, to connect google scholar to your university VPN and start surfing for the paper that you have been looking for.

If you are interested in accessing it as an individual author without any affiliation to the University, here is how you find it:

Step 1: Search for any keyword or phrase or topic on the search bar; it's a good practice to use quote marks for the searches for faster discovery.

Step 2: You could find the article in the first SERP if the article is available on the database.

Step 3: Click on the article title; it will take you to the publisher's site. You could access the article based on its accessibility (free or paid).

Step 4: You can use the link, refer to it, and cite it if it's free. If it's paid, you can use the link to buy or pay for the access.

How to cite a reference using Google Scholar?

Google Scholar provides a hassle-free feature to cite a reference in different citation formats and styles quickly. You can mention the paper you have been eyeing by using the option "Cite" right beneath the article description. Sometimes, you will get it by clicking on the "more" option.

Click on the "cite" feature; you will get a dialogue box with different citation styles, including APA, MLA , Chicago, Harvard, and Vancouver. You can copy and paste them on paper or export them in various formats.

How to export the citations to the citation manager?

Google Scholar search provides you with various citation export formats, including BibTeX, EndNote, RefMan, RefWorks, Zotero, Mendeley, and more.

Its default bibliography manager is set to BibTeX. You can change the settings to export references to the desired format.

Follow the steps to change the settings:>> Go to Menu>> Click on Settings (gear icon) >> Bibliography Manager >> Choose the option "Show links to import citation links into">> Pick the reference management app you want from the drop-down menu. BibTeX would be set as the default one.

Now, you can find the “import link” activated, and the moment you click on the desired format, it gets downloaded, and you can save it appropriately.

Also read: Things To Keep in Mind While Citing

How to export in different formats?

What are the limitations and criticisms of Google Scholar?

Among numerous academic search engines, Google Scholar is often regarded as one of the largest bibliographic databases that have swiftly transformed the era of basic or fundamental data access to scientific data access.

It is no joke that the database has gained popularity and created a buzz around the scholarly communication world since its onset (2004). Of course, it adheres to a guarded algorithm to show the research articles and is equipped with a series of updates on the platform. Still, tailgating the competitor's or other academic databases and accommodating the latter using Google Scholar and advanced search features has become a blocker lately and affecting its credibility and reputation.

The valuable updates and more user-friendly platform of competitor's site have set a high bar for Google, which is challenging to cross the pathway.

So, what are the limiting factors of it?

1. Criteria for assessing or evaluating the sources? It is essential to consider multiple evaluation factors while assessing any novel research paper before indexing. But, there is no technical information about the criteria or approach used to include the scholarly source in the database. Thus, the quality of the paper remains obscure to the audience.

Google scholar is regarded as the world's comprehensive bibliography database; reflecting all the "scholarly" sources without evaluation and assessment is inappropriate. Ideally, it does include all the scholarly SERP pages ranging from high-quality publications to mediocre content concealed within.

2. Ranking algorithm distortion It looks biased and impartial if we speak about the ranking or the indexing algorithm of Scholar. The results it yields are highly dependent on the citation counts, so the first SERP results would include the papers with more citations, and the reader would likely proceed with the paper and ignore the papers with the least counts. As a result, it will affect many novel research papers that might go unnoticed in the database because of low citation counts. Thus, it affects the visibility and accreditation of both budding authors and their articles.

3. In need of more filtering options

Scholar has a huge database of 389 Million papers, but it lacks the filtering options that other search engines like SciSpace (Formerly Typeset) provide. Finding a relevant article among 300M+ documents with minimal filtering options is not worthwhile.

It lacks the following features:

• Direct search options via papers, Authors, Conferences, Institutions, topics, etc.
• Lack of options to select a PDF or open access (which SciSpace has and that deliberately takes the searchers to their desired set of papers for free and you don't have to pay for most of the papers)
• Lacks the "Sort by" all criteria option (with SciSpace, anybody can find the article based on the citation counts, newest, oldest, or even in alphabetical order)
• Filtering out the desired data based on the type, author, institution, and year.
• The option for quick link sharing on social media platforms (which SciSpace exhibits)

4. Free Access to the papers? Or only to the abstracts? The highly critiqued question these days! Though Google Scholar has made its mark with an emblem and title of "finding infinite research papers," the question here is, "Are the articles available on the database completely free," or how do we even access them for free? No! The search engine is only responsible for searching and giving you the research papers based on the keywords. So, the results would include both freely accessible and paywalled articles.

Most of the content on the platform is from commercial journals or publishers' worlds, allowing us to access only the abstract and not the entire article. But, this is not the case with SciSpace. In SciSpace discover, you will find most of the freely available papers in PDFs, and you can access them and cite them for free. 5. Prone to Cyber sleuths, spam, and gaming! The authentication process needs to be even more stringent in Scholar. People are creating fake profiles, adding fake papers or duplicate papers on their profiles, and gaining counterfeit citations.

According to the study conducted by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, the documents created on SCIgen are getting indexed by Google Scholar, providing more citation counts and quantifying the researcher's h-index and impact factors with a good score, which is against the ethics and a question of the platform's reliability? Thereby manipulating the h-index and impact factors.

6. Lack of dynamic citation graphs view

The static portrayal of academic search engines is faded now. Lately, the ocean of scholarly publications has been flooded with numerous papers. Presenting them in 3D or visual citation formats with graphs or citation information would be fruitful for the readers and help them easily squeeze in the required information. One such example is connected graphs, which allow you to create a graph or map of your shortlisted papers required for the literature review and help you compare, analyze, and get the required information from them quicker and faster. Though the feature has great benefits, currently most databases lack it including Google Scholar.

7. Amass of information clutter

When you conduct any Google Scholar search, you will sometimes find fragmentary, hodgepodge, and even duplicated results. The output might also include different versions of the published article or preprints, so the decluttering and heuristic nourishment are still lacking on the platform.

8. Includes predatory journals

Google Scholar makes an effort to index as many publications as it can. As a part, it is also enclosing predatory journals contributing to the contamination of authentic scientific and academic resources too. There should be some approach or use of NLP to avoid this.

9. Erroneous search results

Google Scholar has trouble identifying works on the other sites precisely; thus, the output includes scattered and zombie information from many disciplines, causing inaccurate additional results. The mixed case and the interpunctuation characters in the article titles confuse the results, and the authors are given the wrong papers. Sometimes, a few sloppy outputs are presented without apparent justification. The best example would be indexing the arXiV preprint site.

10. Lacks mapping to Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

The basic user interface and lack of Google Scholar advanced search features on Google Scholar fail to provide the information relevant to clinical practice or medicine as MEDLINE offers. Ideally, the database would be of little or no use to clinicians. Instead, clinicians are using SciSpace to get relevant pieces of information on medical library associations, clinical practice, and more.

11. No systematic and timely content feeding

Google Scholar doesn't crawl scholarly content regularly like SciSpace and Scopus databases. It falls behind in indexing the articles and keeping the database up to date. It is almost a full year behind in indexing PubMed entries. So, we cannot rely on this database to retrieve clinical practice data or records.

12. Lack of claim-level analysis

Those who have explored Scite.ai might have understood the preface of claim-level analysis. Google Scholar emphasizes the citation-based algorithm to produce the results. But, when you are performing a literature review, the citation-level study doesn't serve the purpose of providing relevant articles as the paper could or could not have supported the claim of your topic of interest.

To dodge this, Scite.ai has implemented the new NLP algorithm or tools that support the retrieval process) to sort the results based on supporting or contrasting claims. It helps the users to include or select relevant publications. However, this NLP search button doesn't work the same or yield accurate results for all the cases, and the effectiveness is still being investigated. But, users are in favor of using this claim-level analysis approach.

Likewise, myriad other limiting factors must be addressed to stand on top among competitors like SciSpace, Scopus, Web of Science, and more. Hence, the users are requesting the Google Scholar advanced search features and pitching the support team about the discrepancies and ambiguities happening on the platform.

Although it is a limited tool and not as comprehensive as it claims to be, the Google Scholar database is a decent tool that delivers results quicker and faster. You will have to wait for what it has in store for you in the future!

What is the future of Google Scholar Database?

The advantage of being an exhaustive database is itself a disadvantage here. Because a single query would fetch thousands of articles that might or might not be relevant, factoring out the irrelevant papers is another ball game. So, the database needs to work on the serendipity process to minimize scanning thousands of irrelevant or other documents by implementing recommended engines.

In the present scenario, other databases like Web of Science and Scopus essentially play with NLP and API for automatic data retrieval of papers and profiles. Google Scholar database should level up the retrieval game by integrating an AI-based or API interface to act smarter and stay connected with the reader's demands.

The research discovery should be made simpler and user-friendly by showing the full-length scientific data directly rather than sharing only the abstracts of the paper. On the flip side, it would be difficult for the Google Scholar team as they work more with commercial publishers and can only lead users to the abstract, not the full text (for paywalled articles). Again, this needs to be sorted out.

As of now, it is merely a basic search engine that crawls all the academic content published on the web. Sometimes, it even crawls the latest version of the existing article as a new paper and indexes it to the database, which could impact the author's credibility and citation counts. So, users are in quest of a better Google Scholar database that encompasses all the above-discussed pointers.

Technically, the infrastructure must be standardized to align with the researcher's needs. The updates should promote scientific discovery and support the user's novel idea.

Overall, the quality of the content, ambiguities, lack of transparency, and disingenuous results need to be evaded on the platform.

The Best Alternatives to Google Scholar

Web of Science, Scopus, and SciSpace are the best alternatives to search Google Scholar. All three databases include millions of research papers and advanced filtering options, which help you choose desired research paper in less than seconds. But, Web of Science and Scopus only help you find the research articles and are paid platforms, whereas SciSpace is the largest indexing database that caters to academicians' needs (you can access it for free).

SciSpace is the only integrated research platform where academicians can discover, write (effortless writing and auto-formatting), publish, and disseminate their research papers."Trace the paper" is the most crucial feature of SciSpace embraced by the research realm. The feature aids the research discovery process by keeping all the related papers visually on par. Yes, it keeps your literature review woes at bay by providing a hassle-free or click-click method to access all the relevant papers on a single page. With this feature, you can explore the related papers, citations, references, author details, contributing institutions, and related topics in no time.Another significant feature of SciSpace is Copilot. It’s an AI research assistant that simplifies reading research papers and helps researchers gain an in-depth understanding of the papers.

Let’s say you are reading a research paper and need to decode any complex/technical section of the research paper. What do you do? You go through the paper multiple times, try to refer to other papers, try to search for their meaning, and whatnot? Despite all these, getting the proper context of the section is still tricky and time-consuming. But with the help of Copilot, you can just highlight any text/section, image, table, or figure, and get the explanations. You can even snip mathematical equations and understand them in easier terms. You can even change the language and get the descriptions in a language that you would like to read a paper. You can explore Copilot on any of your papers either by searching for a paper on SciSpace directly or by uploading a PDF. You can try SciSpace Copilot and read any paper of your choice.

So yeah, SciSpace is not merely a search engine, it’s an end-to-end comprehensive platform. It helps researchers right from research discovery to reading and understanding a research paper, to writing a manuscript and submitting it to a journal.

Academicians have acknowledged our database and incorporated SciSpace research papers into their universities worldwide, including the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Nanyang Technological University, Kent University, and more. If you've come here in search of an academic search engine to find a research paper, head over to SciSpace Discover and access any paper.

Frequently Asked Questions about Google Scholar

1. are google scholar citations accurate.

Google Scholar citations are prone to manipulation and inaccurate as it indexes all the academic content on the web regardless of version history, duplicates, name ambiguities, and more. Anything cited by the research paper, be it a blog or an excerpt, would be considered a gained citation.

2. Are google scholar articles credible?

The lack of transparency or the non-disclosure of its indexing algorithm on how the content is included in the database makes it less ideal for literature reviews and systematic reviews.

3. Is google scholar reliable?

There is no proper validation of sources on Scholar, so its reliability is still being questioned.

4. Is google scholar free to use?

Yes! The platform is free to use. You can search and discover research papers on the search engine. However, if the article is paywalled or subscription-based, you might have to follow their publishers' policy to access the research paper.

5. Is google scholar social networking?

It is not a social networking site; you can only find or discover publications on the site. But yes, you can create your academic profile on the platform and add any of your co-authors but interacting with other users is not attainable.

6. Can google scholar find conference proceedings?

You can surely find conference proceedings and conference papers. If you want to search within a particular conference, you will have to hover over the Google Scholar advanced search features and then search for them.

7. What do I do if I can't access google scholar?

The access errors can be for various reasons. Depending on the error, you can reach out to their support team.

8. How often does Google Scholar get updated?

For new papers, it gets updated regularly (day or weekly basis). For existing papers, it takes a minimum of 6-8 months to update the paper.

9. How to find research articles on google scholar?

Go to the website, input the desired paper and click on search. If the database has indexed the article, you will get it on top of the page. Else, you can discover it on SciSpace seamlessly.

10. Why is google scholar not showing my paper?

It depends on multiple factors, including accessibility (should be hosted on academic pages), publication period (it might take weeks or months to get indexed), transparency (the abstract or full-text should be made available to the users), formats (should be available in .PDF format) or size (shouldn't exceed more than 5 MB)

11. Why is google scholar not updating citations?

It takes several months to update the Google Scholar citations. So, you need to wait for it to get reflected. Also, the citation counts will not reflect if the article that has cited your paper is not indexed on this academic database.

12. Can we rely on Google scholar for grey literature?

You can refer to some of the top results, but it shouldn't be the go-to or only source for grey literature.

13. Are google scholar articles peer-reviewed?

The articles are not entirely peer-reviewed; it also indexes preprints, grey literature, and other scholarly materials that are not peer-reviewed.

14. How do I use Google Scholar for legal research?

You can click on the Case Law button on the home page and find the required information on legal research. However, the information accuracy is not assured by Google.

15. How can I access google scholar without institutional email?

You can easily access and search for any research paper without any email address or account. You will need an institutional email only if you want to indicate a verified status on your scholar profile.

16. Can I create a google scholar account without Gmail?

You cannot create an account without Gmail, but you can explore the platform and discover any research papers without creating an account.

17. How does the google scholar alert work?

Once you have set up the alert query, email, and the number of search results on the "create alert" feature, you will be notified via email of your alert preferences.

18. What is google scholar case law?

Google Scholar case law provides access to judicial branch laws or common law based on written opinions by appellate courts.

19. Does google scholar show the journals list?

There is no clear picture of the journals listed on the search engine. But, it shows the list of top publications under the feature "Metrics".

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Google Scholar

Using Google Scholar with your HarvardKey allows you to make the most of provided links, granting access to full text available through Harvard Library subscriptions.

Google Scholar can quickly surface highly cited peer-reviewed articles, abstracts, books, patents, scholarly web pages, and more. 

Explore Google Scholar

Connect Google Scholar To Your Library Access

Connecting Google Scholar to your Harvard Library access is a good way to make sure you get access to articles that Harvard Library subscribes to.

Here's how: 

• Go to Google Scholar and sign in to your Google account
• Look for the menu options
• Go into the settings and select "Library links"
• Type in Harvard and select: Harvard University - Try Harvard Library
• Deselect the box for WorldCat if shown
• Save your preferences
• Search your topic and look for the "Try Harvard Library" links to the right of the articles. This link should take you to Harvard's access to that item

Google Scholar Tips

• Like Google, Google Scholar allows searching of metadata terms, but unlike Google, it also indexes full text. 
• Choose the default search or select “Advanced search” to search by title, author, journal, and date.
• For more advanced researchers, it is possible to specify phrases in quotation marks, enter Boolean queries, or search within fields.
• You may also create an account to set up your author profile or sign up for alerts.
• In settings, you may elect to limit your search by language and show citation import links.
• Results are returned in relevance-ranked order, generally favoring entries when search terms appear in document titles and prioritizing documents with larger citation counts.

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The Google Scholar Features Every Student Should Know

From magazine articles to peer-reviewed papers and case laws, Google Scholar can provide cutting-edge research for free. It's one of Google's lesser-known search tools—but it's invaluable if you need to cite data from trusted sources. 

Google Scholar isn't perfect as an academic search engine—you'll need to know a few tips to help you get the most out of it.

Use Google Scholar's Advanced Search

With some practice, Google Scholar's Advanced Search filters will become your go-to search tool. 

Click the hamburger menu;  Advanced Search  is the second-to-last option.

The Advanced Search box gives you nine filters to search with—their functions are self-explanatory.

You can search for specific terms, find exact phrases, and also search with synonyms. 

For more targeted results, combine these options with filters like publication date, time range, or author. 

Note:  Search results are usually sorted by relevance, not by date. Use the date filters on the results page or select  Sort by date , if that's what you're looking for. Scholar supports all the regular and advanced Boolean search operators, just like Google's regular search. 

Browse articles in your area of interest

You can go to the Google Scholar Metrics page, search through the  top 100 publications , and then drill down to the ones cited most. Then, instead of conducting a random search, you can take a bird's-eye view of the developments in your area of specialization. 

Open the sidebar via the hamburger menu and click on  Metrics . 

Select the dropdown next to  Categories  and then the dropdown for  Subcategories  if you want to drill down deeper.  

Go back to find the fundamental research

When we use Google Search, we are interested in the latest. In Google Scholar, we can go back in time with the date filters (or use a custom date range) to search for foundational research in any field. 

Tip:  Try searching with Chrome's incognito mode and see if it gives you slightly different, non-personalized results that aren't based on your search history. 

Search for experts

 It helps to know who the more influential voices are in your field. You can enter a search term in Google Scholar and find the most cited papers. But first, open the sidebar (select the hamburger icon next to the Google Scholar logo) and select  Profiles . 

The search page updates with the authors' public profiles while retaining what you had initially searched for. Use this information to learn more about their work in your field. 

Tip:  Search for the authors you want more of on YouTube, other academic journals, or social profiles to follow their latest work and lectures. 

Stay updated with Google Scholar Alerts

If you are a heavy Google Scholar user, set up alerts to stay on top of the latest developments. You'll receive emails whenever a new academic topic is published. 

Log into your Google account. 

Click the hamburger menu to open the sidebar. 

Select  Alerts  to open a new page. 

Click the red  Create alert  button and insert the keywords for which Google Scholar should look. 

Select  Update results  to get a preview of the results for the query you used.

Select  Create Alert  to set up the alert. You can set as many alerts as you want. 

Tip:  You can also set up an alert for a particular query from the search results page by clicking on  Create alert .  

Install the Google Scholar button

The Google Scholar button is a Chrome extension that gives you ready access to Google Scholar search results without copying and pasting. You can look up academic articles from any webpage you are on without leaving it. 

For instance, highlight any keyword, topic heading, or citation on any webpage. Click the Google Scholar button, and the relevant results appear in a window. 

You can also use the search field in the Google Scholar window to directly type in a search query.

Learn any subject with Google Scholar

Performing basic research is a fundamental soft skill that can help you develop critical thinking skills. Google Scholar gives you an idea of the broader research in any field. With the right keywords, you can then dive deeper into the results.

Explore the  Top publications  page and the most cited papers to see emerging trends in any field. Use the language filter on the right to read or translate papers in other languages.

Click on the  Cited by  link in the search results to see if fresher research has built upon the material you are reading about.

Click on  All versions  under the search result and see if the alternative sources have the entire paper instead of an abstract. 

Check out  Related articles  and  Related searches  to cross-pollinate your learning with similar ideas from adjacent fields.

Use Google Scholar's  My library  feature to curate articles for later. For instance, click  Save  to read a paper later and use the  Reading list  label. 

Google recommends that if you're new to a subject, picking up the terminology from secondary sources may be helpful. For example, a Wikipedia article on "intravenous feeding" might suggest a Scholar search for "hyperalimentation."

Google Scholar offers  Library links and Library Search  to access any electronic and print resources in a library connected to Google Scholar results. 

Have fun on Google Scholar

Yes, Google Scholar is a serious search engine. But you can still use it to search for quirky topics and see the results it throws up. As a Star Trek fan, I often go there to search for stuff a fellow fan or academic might have written. And 148,000 results suggest that the iconic show is a scholarly subject for many. Try it with your favorite show or movie. 

Scholar Blog

Classic papers: articles that have stood the test of time.

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Google Scholar reveals its most influential papers for 2019

These 7 high-impact papers are citations gold.

Yann Lecun, head of AI research at Facebook Inc, at Bloomberg's Sooner Than You Think technology conference in 2018. Credit: Bloomberg/Getty Images

2 August 2019

Bloomberg/Getty Images

Yann Lecun, head of AI research at Facebook Inc, at Bloomberg's Sooner Than You Think technology conference in 2018.

The just-released Google Scholar ranking of most highly cited publications reveal the tremendous rise in interest surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) research.

Of the five most highly-cited papers in Nature – which itself is ranked by Google Scholar as the most influential journal – three are related to AI, and one has raked in more than 16,000 citations.

The publication accompanying one of the top AI conferences in the world – the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) – makes its debut in the top 10 journals this year, up from 20th place in 2018. One of its papers has clocked 25,256 citations in the past three years.

Tracking citation information for almost 400 million academic papers and other scholarly literature, Google Scholar is the largest database in the world of its kind, and aims to measure the "visibility and influence" of recent publications.

The 2019 Google Scholar Metrics ranking, which is freely accessible online , tracks papers published between 2014 and 2018, and includes citations from all articles that were indexed in Google Scholar as of July 2019.

Below is a selection of its most highly cited articles published by the world's most influential journals.

1. "Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition" (2016) Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 25,256 citations

Of the 100 top-ranked journals this year, five are AI conference publications. This particular journal, which made a huge leap in the rankings this year, has three articles with more than 10,000 citations each – a feat not matched by any other journal.

As Synced's Fangyu Cai points out , "It should come as no surprise … that AI conferences are publishing so prodigiously – in recent years they have evolved from low-key academic gatherings into extravagant multimedia events attracting thousands and serving as showcases for major innovations and breakthroughs in AI research, development, and deployment."

This particular article was written by a research team from Microsoft – a company that achieved a significant increase in high-quality research output in 2018, as tracked by the Nature Index.

2. "Deep learning" (2015) Nature 16,750 citations

This paper stands out not just because of its high number of citations, but because there was a difference of more than 10,000 between its citation count and the second most-cited Nature paper in the 2019 Google Scholar Metrics report.

Authored by 2018 Turing Award winners, Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton – known collectively as the 'Godfathers of AI' – the paper is a seminal review of the potential of the AI technologies.

3. "Going Deeper with Convolutions" (2015) Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 14,424 citations

This paper by Google AI researchers describes their new object-detection system, GoogLeNet, built using a deep neural network system codenamed Inception.

It received top marks in the 2014 ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge – an international computer vision competition.

In 2018, Google’s parent company, Alphabet , was the sixth most prolific corporate entity in high-quality research output in the Nature Index.

4. "Fully Convolutional Networks for Semantic Segmentation" (2015) Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 10,153 citations

A team from the University of California, Berkeley was responsible for this highly influential AI paper, which describes a state-of-the-art approach to building AI systems that can identify objects in images.

This particular type of model, semantic segmentation, can be used to count the number of objects in a single image, which has great potential for technologies such as self-driving cars and robotics.

5. "Prevalence of Childhood and Adult Obesity in the United States, 2011-2012" (2014) JAMA 8,057 citations

No non-AI-related paper received more than 10,000 citations in the 2019 Google Scholar Metrics , but this investigation by a team from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came close.

At the time of its release, the study provided the most up-to-date national estimates of childhood obesity in the United States and found that more than one-third of adults and 17% of youth were obese.

It did conclude, however, that there had been no significant changes in obesity prevalence in youth or adults between 2003-2004 and 2011-2012.

6. "Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013" (2014) Lancet 7,371 citations

With almost 200 authors from more than 100 institutions, this paper signifies an enormous undertaking to investigate the global prevalence of obesity.

The study found that the proportion of adults in the world that were overweight or obese had increased between 1980 and 2013, particularly in developed countries, and identified obesity as a major global health challenge.

The second most-cited Lancet paper had 2,459 citations, making this paper an anomaly for the medical journal.

7. "Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger" (2016) Physical Review Letters 6,009 citations

This study stands out among the rest in this list as one that gained significant media attention and engagement from the general public, making an impact both inside and outside academia.

Through this paper, a team of physicists from the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) described the first direct observation of gravitational waves – a feat that took a century to achieve following Einstein’s prediction of these elusive ripples in space-time.

The study got 2.5 times more citations than the second most-cited paper in Physical Review Letters , also from LIGO, which in 2017 announced the first direct observation of a merger between two neutron stars.

See the full 2019 Google Scholar Metrics .

The 5 most popular scientific papers of June

High-impact papers score well in REF, study finds

Game changers - articles that are highly cited in patents

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