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Public Health

Advanced Settings

Find the Advanced Search by pulling down the menu in the upper right haqnd corner.

Learn some tips on using the advanced search features in Google Scholar by following the instructions below:

  • "with ALL of the words"
    Use this line to list the words that your ideal articles will contain.
       obesity legislation children health
  • "with the EXACT PHRASE"
    Use this line to list a phrase that you would like to see contained within your ideal articles.
       preventing childhood obesity
  • "with AT LEAST ONE of the words"
    Use this line to list words that can be mixed-and-matched to create a search. You will get articles that contain at least one of these words.
       legislation BMI obesity diet
  • "WITHOUT the words"
    Use this line to list words that you do not want. This is helpful if your keyword has a synonym.
       JAVA coffee
  • "where my words occur"
    Use this box to tell Google Scholar that you want your keywords to be in the title of any articles. This is an easy way to cut down the number of articles/books in the results list.
  • "return articles AUTHORED by"
    Use this line to search using an author's name.
       R. Brooke Thomas
  • "return articles PUBLISHED in"
    Use this line to search within a specific journal. Watch for possible journal abbreviations.
       medical anthropology quarterly
  • "return articles DATED between"
    Use these boxes to specify a date range.
       2009 - 2012
    Nancy's Tips:
    * as wildcard symbol
       "*diet" will retrieve: diet, diets, dieting

Google Scholar Tips

Advantages & Disadvantages

Advantages

Google Scholar can be useful when searching:

  • "Grey literature" such as conference proceedings
  • Across multiple disciplines
  • For multiple types of documents (articles, proceedings, books)

Google Scholar can also help you quickly identify who is publishing in your area of research.

Disadvantages

  • not knowing what is included or not included
  • not knowing when it's updated
  • many older articles
  • can't browse by title
  • no way to limit search results

If you need advanced searching features or recent articles, try one of the databases the library subscribes to. Many are included in the other tabs in this subject guide. Or you can browse all of our databases by subject.

 

Ask yourself:

  • When should you use Google Scholar, and when should you use a different search engine?
  • When would it be more productive to use a database that the Library subscribes to for students, faculty, and staff?