Getting Better Results with Google Scholar

Use these tips to make Google Scholar work better!

First, you must have a Google Scholar profile

To have a Google Scholar profile, you must have a Google account, use a real name, and to be able to verify your identity as someone affiliated with a scholarly enterprise, like a college or university. You'll go to Scholar.google.com, click on My Profile, and fill in the requested information.

If you have a common name, you may end up with references in your profile that aren't yours. Be wary.

elements of a Google Scholar profile- name, email, affiliation, etc.

A Scholar profile looks like this, when filled in--

This is what a profile looks like when filled in. When I built this one, you were allowed to add your own references. I'm not sure if you are allowed to do so at this point, or if Google Scholar populates the page.

example of what a Google Scholar profile looks like for an individual

If your publications have been cited, there will be a number at the right side of the list, (I've circled the top one) which is a link to a list of the publications that have cited that work. If you click on the number, you may work from that screen to mark and collect the works that have cited your work to 'My library' in Google Scholar. Then, when you click on 'my library', you can mark the list in the check boxes and save the citations to a citation manager such as EndNote or Zotero or Mendeley.

Save the citations from works where they've cited your works

Mark the stars to save to your 'my library' folder, then mark the citations or the list of citations to save them to Endnote or other citation managers.

Shows how to mark a retrival set to save to your 'library' or download to a citation manager.