What is Google Scholar?  (information from Rutgers University Libraries)

In November 2004, Google introduced a new product that searches scholarly literature. Materials you may find in Google Scholar include peer-reviewed papers, dissertations, book citations, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from a variety of content providers. Sources of material include academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and open access publishers. Some content is available in full text.

How do I search Google Scholar?

You can search Google Scholar in the same manner as regular Google. An Advanced Scholar Search page permits you to search for author, publisher, and publication date. For more information, see: http://scholar.google.com/scholar/refinesearch.html

How Does Google Scholar Work?

• Rankings- Google Scholar ranks and lists results according to how relevant they are to the search query. The rankings include how often the work was cited in resources indexed in the Google Scholar database. For more information on relevancy ranking see: http://scholar.google.com/scholar/about.html

• Cited By- Selecting the Cited By link will display a list of items that have cited the original document. However, Google Scholar is not comprehensive for citation analysis as it only includes documents indexed within its database.

• Full text- Not every item will lead to full text. Some entries, usually enclosed in brackets, e.g., [citation], [book], are simply citations from documents indexed in the Google Scholar database.

How comprehensive is Google Scholar?

Google Scholar is not considered comprehensive for academic content. For the most thorough search of a topic, consult the subject specific databases to which the library subscribes. For a complete list, see Title List.