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Faculty Guide to Publication: Google Scholar

This guide will help VWU faculty locate publications that cite their own published works and is intended to be useful in tenure & promotion review. It also provides guidance for what to consider when deciding where to publish.

Cited Reference Searching in Google Scholar

To find information on one article, search for the article title.  In the results list, the number of citations is listed below each result ("cited by").  To find all the works of a researcher, use the process below.

1. Search for an author in Google Scholar using one of the methods listed at the right.

  • If you get too many results or the author's name is common, search for works individually by adding keywords or phrases from the title.

2. Look for Cited by below each result for the number of citations. Click this link to see who is citing this work.

Google Scholar results screen

 

HINTS

Setting your Scholar Preferences will give you more functionality by:

  • Showing the Find It @ VWU link to help you find items the library owns.  (Set the Library Links.)
  • Providing an Import Citation link for each item so you can import it to EndNote or another citation manager.  (Set the Bibliography Manager.)

Scholar preferences link on Google Scholar screen

Beware! Google Scholar is not ultra sophisticated.

  • It won't remove self-citations, so you have to look for these yourself.
  • It sometimes has multiple entries for one work which may duplicate citations.
  • Usage has shown that some of its "citations" are false - you must double check them to make sure your numbers are accurate.
  • Because of this, it takes longer to gather data using Google Scholar.

Search Google Scholar

Google Scholar


 

To find an author, use last name and initials in one of the following formats.

fx bostick
"fx bostick"
author:"fx bostick"
author:"f bostick"
author:"francis x bostick"

To narrow your search, add keywords from the work's title.

Off Campus?  Go directly to VWU's Google Scholar or set your scholar preferences for full functionality.

Google Scholar Search Guides