LibGuides: Search Literature Effectively for Business Research : Google Scholar

Introduction

About Google Scholar ...

Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine. It looks like Google Web Search but searches only for scholarly materials, such as peer-reviewed articles, preprints, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, coming from a wide variety of sources, including: academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities, and other websites.

Google Scholar offers 2 search interfaces: Basic Search and Advanced Search. To perform a Basic Search, simply enter keywords and phrases (put phrases inside quotation marks) in the single search box. To perform an advanced search, go to Setting > Advanced Search page where you can specify keywords, phrases, authors, publications, dates, subject areas, etc. using the given options.

Google Scholar is a great tool to find scholarly resources. Having said that, it has its limitations, such as:

Lack of controlled vocabulary.
Insufficient limiting features and search options.
Scope of coverage is uncertain.
The timeliness of the information is uncertain/may not be provided.

We recommend using Google Scholar to supplement your searches using the Library's discovery tools and subscription databases.

Search Results

How to read a search result ...

Each search result represents a scholarly item. It contains bibliographic information such as the title, author names, source of publication and multiple links providing various versions and options for the full text.

1. Title

The title may link to the abstracts of an article or the description page of a book.

2. All ... Versions

Displays different versions of the same paper, including preprints and copies from repositories, such as the HKUST Institutional Repository. While the version at the publisher's site is usually available for subscribers only, alternative versions may be openly accessible.

3. View as HTML

Google Scholar will often provide a View as HTML link which shows the PDF text translated into HTML. If you don't see the View as HTML link on the search results pages, click More:

4. Library Search

The Library Search points to a search of the book in WorldCat, a union catalog holding millions of bibiographic records contributed by thousands of libraries worldwide. If you don't see the Library Search link on the search results pages, click More:

5. Find@HKUST

This option usually appears at article records. It helps you find the full text of an article within the Library subscriptions via SFX scholarly linking.

6. Cited by

This gives you a list of documents which cited the document you originally retrieved. This list only includes documents available in Google Scholar. To find other citing articles, use Web of Science and Scopus.

7. Related articles

This lists articles that are determined as similar within the Google index.

Both Cited by and Related articles enables us to see closely related works.

8. Import into RefWorks

Import citation information directly from Google Scholar to into RefWorks. If you don't see the Import into RefWorks link on the search results pages, click Cite:

Be a Smarter Searcher

Some Search Tips ...

Using Search Operators

The search operators give you more control over the results that you would like to see.

Use quotes to search for an exact word or set of words, e.g. "corporate governance".
Use site: to search within a specific domain, e.g. site:.edu.
Add a dash (-) before a word or site to exclude all results that include that word (e.g. libraries -public) or from that specific domain (e.g. investment -site:.org).
Use filetype: to look for files in the specified format, e.g. marketing filetype:.pdf.

Finding Recent Papers

Your search results are normally sorted by relevance, not by date. To find newer articles or articles in specific periods, try the following options in the left sidebar:

Click Since Year to show only recently published papers, sorted by relevance.
Click Custom range to enter a specific year range.
Click Sort by date to show just the new additions, sorted by date.