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Nursing: The wider world: Using Google Scholar

Google Scholar logoThese days, Jessica prefers to use QuickSearch but when she is struggling to find anything on QuickSearch, she sometimes uses Google Scholar.

(We recommended not using Google, but Google Scholar is a completely different search engine.)

 

Before you start: Making Google Scholar useful

Click the Settings option (may be showing on its own or under More)

screenshot, Google Scholar, indicating Settings option

Click on the Library links option

screenshot indicating Library links option

Search for federation, tick the checkbox for Federation University Australia, and (important!) click the Save button.

screenshot showing results of search for word federation qand indicating Save button

This makes many more full-text resources available in your Google Scholar results, resources that the Library has paid for.

Google Scholar: Search like Google, articles like the Library

Start in Google Scholar. Search for a topic.

The ANDs in the screenshot are not required (they are implied in Google and Google Scholar), but do not modify the search, and are included here for clarity.

Limit to the last 5 years.

 screenshot of Google Scholar, indicating limit for last 5 years (since 2012)

When using Google Scholar, see the CRAAP test before relying on any article from the results.

To read results from Google Scholar, look for either an open access link on the right-hand side, or (if you have added Federation University as instructed above) use the Find Fulltext link to connect to material provided via the Library.

After clicking the buttons and reading the sections above, try searching Google Scholar yourself:

Google Scholar - journal articles and other material (as detailed above, you can link Google Scholar to the Library's paid full-text subscriptions)

 

Google Scholar has a citation feature, but always check the citation it supplies. It may be incorrect (no upper case letter to start a subtitle, for example) or incomplete (missing the DOI, for example).

screenshots from Google Scholar, showing Cite link and citation pop-up

Underneath many articles in your Google Scholar results will be a Cited by link - this points to newer articles that have used the article in their reference list. Some of these (but not all) may be on the same topic, so it can be another way of finding newer relevant articles.

This can also be a rough guide to how much impact an article has had - articles with more impact tend to be cited more.

screenshot, Google Scholar, showing Cited by link underneath an article in the results list

The Empire strikes back: Using Google wisely

I know, I know, we told you not to use Google for your assignments

However, Google has some great features for searching for government reports, policies, statistics and other useful documents. (But please do not rely on using Google for all your references.)

  • Use technical or professional terms to get more technical or professional results. For example, when looking for disease statistics, use incidence rather than numbers or statistics (or maybe prevalence might be more relevant).
  • Use (double) quotation marks to define phrases (multiple words found together, rather than separately) - use "whooping cough" to find the exact phrase rather then whooping cough (which might find he started to cough after whooping for joy).
  • Add site:gov.au to restrict results to only government websites.

incidence "whooping cough" site:gov.au

Try it in Google

 

You can also:

  • use site:vic.gov.au to restrict to Victorian government web sites.
  • use a year range to look for years in the results, such as 2012..2015
  • specify the filetype of results (such as only PDF documents).

incidence "whooping cough" site:vic.gov.au 2014..2016 filetype:PDF

Try it:  

You can also use OR for alternative terms (works at the end of the search line):

incidence site:vic.gov.au 2014..2016 filetype:PDF "whooping cough" OR pertussis

Try it:  

Remember about using professional or technical terms to find professional results? Try leaving out whooping couch and only searching for the medical term for the condition, pertussis.

incidence site:vic.gov.au 2014..2016 filetype:PDF pertussis

Try it:  

We can also exclude a search term from our results (similar to using NOT in a database) by putting a hyphen or minus sign in front of the word (or phrase in quotes). For example , to exclude results that include the word Melbourne, we can use -Melbourne

incidence site:vic.gov.au 2014..2016 filetype:PDF pertussis -Melbourne

Try it:  

 

Warning: excluding results that have the word Melbourne will also exclude results that have Melbourne and rural details, or Melbourne and Latrobe Valley

This might not be what you want.

Got a DOI? Find the article here

Got to this address: http://www.doi.org.ezproxy.federation.edu.au/

Type in (or copy and paste) your DOI, hit the Submit button and go straight to the article (if FedUni has it).

Picture of the DOI box (not an actual active text box):

screenshot of DOI entry field

Tags: health, nursing