InfoSkills for Social and Behavioral Sciences

These tips will help you use Google Scholar effectively:

Use double quotation marks for exact phrases 

As with Google and Google Books, you can use quotation marks ➊ to search for exact phrases – adjacent words – such as "academic performance." 

Use the Advanced search

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

• Choosing how Google Scholar conducts your search – 
  • with all of the words
  • with the exact phrase
  • with at least one of the words
  • without the words
• Choosing where your search terms are applied – either anywhere in the article (the default setting) or specifically within the article title
• Searching by author or journal
• Limiting your search by year or date range

Use the date filter options 

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 frequently links to articles on commercial publishers’ websites, where you may be asked to pay high fees for full access. Don’t pay! Instead, first connect Google Scholar to the TiU library – instructions are provided in the previous subsection.

Once Google Scholar is connected to the TiU library, here’s what to do:

1. If available, the "Fulltext via TiUfinder" link on the right side of the entry should always be your first choice. It takes you directly to the final, published version of the article through the TiU library. 
2. If the TiUfinder link is missing or doesn’t lead to the full text, try other links on the right side of the item. Links labeled [PDF] or [HTML] ❹ often provide access to the article in open access journals, institutional repositories, or other digital archives. 
3. If you don’t see the TiUfinder, [PDF], or [HTML] links, click "All versions" ➎ to explore alternative versions of the document that Google Scholar has found.

Please note Can’t find the item? Request it through interlibrary loan. This service lets you borrow items not available in the TiU library’s collection. While there's a small fee for students, it’s significantly lower than the amount charged by the publisher.