How Google Scholar Searches - Google Scholar: An Essential Research Tool - LibGuides at University of Regina Skip to main content It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results. University of Regina LibGuides Google Scholar: An Essential Research Tool How Google Scholar Searches Search this Guide Search Google Scholar: An Essential Research Tool: How Google Scholar Searches Introduction Academic Databases Google Scholar Creating Search Strategies Results from Academic Databases How Google Scholar Searches Connecting to Google Scholar Searching Google Scholar Working With Results Tightening Your Focus Summary How Google Scholar Searches Google Scholar does not search in exactly the same way as the “academic” databases described under the preceding tab. Truncation: The Library catalogue and academic databases use something called a truncation symbol to retrieve various endings on a word “stem”.  The Library catalogue uses a ? question mark. Most academic databases use a star or asterisk   *.   Thus, as indicated earlier –             japan*    would find records containing the words   japan/japan’s/japanese.             german*   would find   german/german’s/germans/germany/ Germanic.   Automatic stemming:   Google Scholar doesn’t recognize truncation symbols. Instead, it uses automatic stemming, and looks for the word you type in, plus any additional letters on the end of that word. To work properly, what you type in must be a complete word, not a truncated one such as societ. As an example,             military would find the words military/military’s , but not militarism/militaristic.             Psychology would not also retrieve psychological/psychologically/psychologist. Because you can’t use truncation symbols, you may need to type in those additional variations of your search terms. Scholar now does appear to search automatically for synonyms related to the words in your search strategy. But the results are often erratic. Exact Word Searching By default Google looks for the synonyms of your search word.  So if you want to search for library Google will also search for librarian.  The best strategy for shutting off this feature is to put words in quotation marks " ".  So back to our prior example: searching for library will also bring back librarian, while searching for "library" will only return results for library. Automatic Insertion of the Boolean Command Word  AND :  Scholar automatically inserts the word  AND  between every word/phrase/set of brackets unless you deliberately type in the word OR instead.   Capitalization of the Boolean command word  OR  :   If you use the command word OR it must be in capital letters so that Scholar will understand it is a command, not just another word to search for.      How should you connect to Google Scholar?           Subject Guide Robert Thomas Email Me Contact:LY611, Dr. John Archer Library, University of Regina. 3737 Wascana Parkway Regina, SK S4S 0A2 306-585-4398 Social: Facebook Page LinkedIn Page Subjects:Citation Style Guides, Classics, History, International Languages, International Studies, Journalism, Judaic Studies, Justice Studies, Linguistics, Philosophy, Political Science, Reference, Religious Studies, Sociology << Previous: Results from Academic Databases Next: Connecting to Google Scholar >> Last Updated: Jun 29, 2020 2:12 PM URL: https://uregina.libguides.com/c.php?g=606135 Print Page Login to LibApps Subjects: Google Scholar, Reference Tags: google scholar