These tips will help you use Google Scholar effectively.
As with Google and Google Books, you can use quotation marks ➊ to search for exact phrases – adjacent words – such as "academic performance."
Google Scholar offers an advanced search that helps you perform more focused searches. To access Google Scholar's advanced search features, click on the three horizontal lines located in the top left corner of the screen. Then, select the "Advanced search" link ➋. A box will appear with several options that allow you to refine your search.
Extra options available in Advanced Search
Your results are ranked by relevance, with frequently cited articles appearing near the top. However, these results may not be very recent. To find newer articles that haven’t had time to accumulate citations, use the "Since year" filters in the left sidebar. For example, select "Since 2025" ❸ to display only items published from 2025 onward, still sorted by relevance.
Google Scholar often links to articles on commercial publishers’ websites, where you might be asked to pay high fees for full access. Don’t pay! Instead, start by connecting Google Scholar to the TiU library – instructions are provided in the previous subsection. If the library has access, you can open the article directly from the Google Scholar results page by clicking on the "Fulltext via TiUfinder" link next to the search result.
Assuming Google Scholar is connected to the TiU library: here’s how to proceed if you want to access an article and clicking on the title link doesn’t take you to the free full text.
Interlibrary Loan service. While there's a small fee for students, it’s significantly lower than the amount charged by the publisher.
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