Google Scholar contains many free full-text articles. A few tips for searching in Google Scholar are below. For more detailed information on using Google Scholar, check out our Google Scholar Guide
- Keep a phrase together: Use quotation marks to keep a phrase together
- PDFs only: Put this after your search terms: filetype:pdf
- Boolean OR: Must be in capital letters
- Get a citation: Click the quotation marks
- Advanced search: from the main search screen, click on three bars (“more”), then click on “Advanced Search
Can't find the full text? Abstracts are freely available for most of the articles, but full-text access is not guaranteed. Here are a few things to try:
- click "All versions" under the search result and check out the alternative sources
- click "Related articles" or "Cited by" under the search result to explore similar articles
- search for the article in Google (not Google Scholar)