how to do research on google scholar

• Corrections

Search Help

Get the most out of Google Scholar with some helpful tips on searches, email alerts, citation export, and more.

Finding recent papers

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

• click "Since Year" to show only recently published papers, sorted by relevance;
• click "Sort by date" to show just the new additions, sorted by date;
• click the envelope icon to have new results periodically delivered by email.

Locating the full text of an article

Abstracts are freely available for most of the articles. Alas, reading the entire article may require a subscription. Here're a few things to try:

• click a library link, e.g., "FindIt@Harvard", to the right of the search result;
• click a link labeled [PDF] to the right of the search result;
• 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.

If you're affiliated with a university, but don't see links such as "FindIt@Harvard", please check with your local library about the best way to access their online subscriptions. You may need to do search from a computer on campus, or to configure your browser to use a library proxy.

Getting better answers

If you're new to the subject, it may be helpful to pick up the terminology from secondary sources. E.g., a Wikipedia article for "overweight" might suggest a Scholar search for "pediatric hyperalimentation".

If the search results are too specific for your needs, check out what they're citing in their "References" sections. Referenced works are often more general in nature.

Similarly, if the search results are too basic for you, click "Cited by" to see newer papers that referenced them. These newer papers will often be more specific.

Explore! There's rarely a single answer to a research question. Click "Related articles" or "Cited by" to see closely related work, or search for author's name and see what else they have written.

Searching Google Scholar

Use the "author:" operator, e.g., author:"d knuth" or author:"donald e knuth".

Put the paper's title in quotations: "A History of the China Sea".

You'll often get better results if you search only recent articles, but still sort them by relevance, not by date. E.g., click "Since 2018" in the left sidebar of the search results page.

To see the absolutely newest articles first, click "Sort by date" in the sidebar. If you use this feature a lot, you may also find it useful to setup email alerts to have new results automatically sent to you.

Note: On smaller screens that don't show the sidebar, these options are available in the dropdown menu labelled "Year" right below the search button.

Select the "Case law" option on the homepage or in the side drawer on the search results page.

It finds documents similar to the given search result.

It's in the side drawer. The advanced search window lets you search in the author, title, and publication fields, as well as limit your search results by date.

Select the "Case law" option and do a keyword search over all jurisdictions. Then, click the "Select courts" link in the left sidebar on the search results page.

Tip: To quickly search a frequently used selection of courts, bookmark a search results page with the desired selection.

Access to articles

For each Scholar search result, we try to find a version of the article that you can read. These access links are labelled [PDF] or [HTML] and appear to the right of the search result. For example:

A paper that you need to read

Access links cover a wide variety of ways in which articles may be available to you - articles that your library subscribes to, open access articles, free-to-read articles from publishers, preprints, articles in repositories, etc.

When you are on a campus network, access links automatically include your library subscriptions and direct you to subscribed versions of articles. On-campus access links cover subscriptions from primary publishers as well as aggregators.

Off-campus access

Off-campus access links let you take your library subscriptions with you when you are at home or traveling. You can read subscribed articles when you are off-campus just as easily as when you are on-campus. Off-campus access links work by recording your subscriptions when you visit Scholar while on-campus, and looking up the recorded subscriptions later when you are off-campus.

We use the recorded subscriptions to provide you with the same subscribed access links as you see on campus. We also indicate your subscription access to participating publishers so that they can allow you to read the full-text of these articles without logging in or using a proxy. The recorded subscription information expires after 30 days and is automatically deleted.

In addition to Google Scholar search results, off-campus access links can also appear on articles from publishers participating in the off-campus subscription access program. Look for links labeled [PDF] or [HTML] on the right hand side of article pages.

Anne Author , John Doe , Jane Smith , Someone Else

In this fascinating paper, we investigate various topics that would be of interest to you. We also describe new methods relevant to your project, and attempt to address several questions which you would also like to know the answer to. Lastly, we analyze …

You can disable off-campus access links on the Scholar settings page . Disabling off-campus access links will turn off recording of your library subscriptions. It will also turn off indicating subscription access to participating publishers. Once off-campus access links are disabled, you may need to identify and configure an alternate mechanism (e.g., an institutional proxy or VPN) to access your library subscriptions while off-campus.

Email Alerts

Do a search for the topic of interest, e.g., "M Theory"; click the envelope icon in the sidebar of the search results page; enter your email address, and click "Create alert". We'll then periodically email you newly published papers that match your search criteria.

No, you can enter any email address of your choice. If the email address isn't a Google account or doesn't match your Google account, then we'll email you a verification link, which you'll need to click to start receiving alerts.

This works best if you create a public profile , which is free and quick to do. Once you get to the homepage with your photo, click "Follow" next to your name, select "New citations to my articles", and click "Done". We will then email you when we find new articles that cite yours.

Search for the title of your paper, e.g., "Anti de Sitter space and holography"; click on the "Cited by" link at the bottom of the search result; and then click on the envelope icon in the left sidebar of the search results page.

First, do a search for your colleague's name, and see if they have a Scholar profile. If they do, click on it, click the "Follow" button next to their name, select "New articles by this author", and click "Done".

If they don't have a profile, do a search by author, e.g., [author:s-hawking], and click on the mighty envelope in the left sidebar of the search results page. If you find that several different people share the same name, you may need to add co-author names or topical keywords to limit results to the author you wish to follow.

We send the alerts right after we add new papers to Google Scholar. This usually happens several times a week, except that our search robots meticulously observe holidays.

There's a link to cancel the alert at the bottom of every notification email.

If you created alerts using a Google account, you can manage them all here . If you're not using a Google account, you'll need to unsubscribe from the individual alerts and subscribe to the new ones.

Google Scholar library

Google Scholar library is your personal collection of articles. You can save articles right off the search page, organize them by adding labels, and use the power of Scholar search to quickly find just the one you want - at any time and from anywhere. You decide what goes into your library, and we’ll keep the links up to date.

You get all the goodies that come with Scholar search results - links to PDF and to your university's subscriptions, formatted citations, citing articles, and more!

Library help

Find the article you want to add in Google Scholar and click the “Save” button under the search result.

Click “My library” at the top of the page or in the side drawer to view all articles in your library. To search the full text of these articles, enter your query as usual in the search box.

Find the article you want to remove, and then click the “Delete” button under it.

• To add a label to an article, find the article in your library, click the “Label” button under it, select the label you want to apply, and click “Done”.
• To view all the articles with a specific label, click the label name in the left sidebar of your library page.
• To remove a label from an article, click the “Label” button under it, deselect the label you want to remove, and click “Done”.
• To add, edit, or delete labels, click “Manage labels” in the left column of your library page.

Only you can see the articles in your library. If you create a Scholar profile and make it public, then the articles in your public profile (and only those articles) will be visible to everyone.

Your profile contains all the articles you have written yourself. It’s a way to present your work to others, as well as to keep track of citations to it. Your library is a way to organize the articles that you’d like to read or cite, not necessarily the ones you’ve written.

Citation Export

Click the "Cite" button under the search result and then select your bibliography manager at the bottom of the popup. We currently support BibTeX, EndNote, RefMan, and RefWorks.

Err, no, please respect our robots.txt when you access Google Scholar using automated software. As the wearers of crawler's shoes and webmaster's hat, we cannot recommend adherence to web standards highly enough.

Sorry, we're unable to provide bulk access. You'll need to make an arrangement directly with the source of the data you're interested in. Keep in mind that a lot of the records in Google Scholar come from commercial subscription services.

Sorry, we can only show up to 1,000 results for any particular search query. Try a different query to get more results.

Content Coverage

Google Scholar includes journal and conference papers, theses and dissertations, academic books, pre-prints, abstracts, technical reports and other scholarly literature from all broad areas of research. You'll find works from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies and university repositories, as well as scholarly articles available anywhere across the web. Google Scholar also includes court opinions and patents.

We index research articles and abstracts from most major academic publishers and repositories worldwide, including both free and subscription sources. To check current coverage of a specific source in Google Scholar, search for a sample of their article titles in quotes.

While we try to be comprehensive, it isn't possible to guarantee uninterrupted coverage of any particular source. We index articles from sources all over the web and link to these websites in our search results. If one of these websites becomes unavailable to our search robots or to a large number of web users, we have to remove it from Google Scholar until it becomes available again.

Our meticulous search robots generally try to index every paper from every website they visit, including most major sources and also many lesser known ones.

That said, Google Scholar is primarily a search of academic papers. Shorter articles, such as book reviews, news sections, editorials, announcements and letters, may or may not be included. Untitled documents and documents without authors are usually not included. Website URLs that aren't available to our search robots or to the majority of web users are, obviously, not included either. Nor do we include websites that require you to sign up for an account, install a browser plugin, watch four colorful ads, and turn around three times and say coo-coo before you can read the listing of titles scanned at 10 DPI... You get the idea, we cover academic papers from sensible websites.

That's usually because we index many of these papers from other websites, such as the websites of their primary publishers. The "site:" operator currently only searches the primary version of each paper.

It could also be that the papers are located on examplejournals.gov, not on example.gov. Please make sure you're searching for the "right" website.

That said, the best way to check coverage of a specific source is to search for a sample of their papers using the title of the paper.

Ahem, we index papers, not journals. You should also ask about our coverage of universities, research groups, proteins, seminal breakthroughs, and other dimensions that are of interest to users. All such questions are best answered by searching for a statistical sample of papers that has the property of interest - journal, author, protein, etc. Many coverage comparisons are available if you search for [allintitle:"google scholar"], but some of them are more statistically valid than others.

Currently, Google Scholar allows you to search and read published opinions of US state appellate and supreme court cases since 1950, US federal district, appellate, tax and bankruptcy courts since 1923 and US Supreme Court cases since 1791. In addition, it includes citations for cases cited by indexed opinions or journal articles which allows you to find influential cases (usually older or international) which are not yet online or publicly available.

Legal opinions in Google Scholar are provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied on as a substitute for legal advice from a licensed lawyer. Google does not warrant that the information is complete or accurate.

We normally add new papers several times a week. However, updates to existing records take 6-9 months to a year or longer, because in order to update our records, we need to first recrawl them from the source website. For many larger websites, the speed at which we can update their records is limited by the crawl rate that they allow.

Inclusion and Corrections

We apologize, and we assure you the error was unintentional. Automated extraction of information from articles in diverse fields can be tricky, so an error sometimes sneaks through.

Please write to the owner of the website where the erroneous search result is coming from, and encourage them to provide correct bibliographic data to us, as described in the technical guidelines . Once the data is corrected on their website, it usually takes 6-9 months to a year or longer for it to be updated in Google Scholar. We appreciate your help and your patience.

If you can't find your papers when you search for them by title and by author, please refer your publisher to our technical guidelines .

You can also deposit your papers into your institutional repository or put their PDF versions on your personal website, but please follow your publisher's requirements when you do so. See our technical guidelines for more details on the inclusion process.

We normally add new papers several times a week; however, it might take us some time to crawl larger websites, and corrections to already included papers can take 6-9 months to a year or longer.

Google Scholar generally reflects the state of the web as it is currently visible to our search robots and to the majority of users. When you're searching for relevant papers to read, you wouldn't want it any other way!

If your citation counts have gone down, chances are that either your paper or papers that cite it have either disappeared from the web entirely, or have become unavailable to our search robots, or, perhaps, have been reformatted in a way that made it difficult for our automated software to identify their bibliographic data and references. If you wish to correct this, you'll need to identify the specific documents with indexing problems and ask your publisher to fix them. Please refer to the technical guidelines .

Please do let us know . Please include the URL for the opinion, the corrected information and a source where we can verify the correction.

We're only able to make corrections to court opinions that are hosted on our own website. For corrections to academic papers, books, dissertations and other third-party material, click on the search result in question and contact the owner of the website where the document came from. For corrections to books from Google Book Search, click on the book's title and locate the link to provide feedback at the bottom of the book's page.

General Questions

These are articles which other scholarly articles have referred to, but which we haven't found online. To exclude them from your search results, uncheck the "include citations" box on the left sidebar.

First, click on links labeled [PDF] or [HTML] to the right of the search result's title. Also, check out the "All versions" link at the bottom of the search result.

Second, if you're affiliated with a university, using a computer on campus will often let you access your library's online subscriptions. Look for links labeled with your library's name to the right of the search result's title. Also, see if there's a link to the full text on the publisher's page with the abstract.

Keep in mind that final published versions are often only available to subscribers, and that some articles are not available online at all. Good luck!

Technically, your web browser remembers your settings in a "cookie" on your computer's disk, and sends this cookie to our website along with every search. Check that your browser isn't configured to discard our cookies. Also, check if disabling various proxies or overly helpful privacy settings does the trick. Either way, your settings are stored on your computer, not on our servers, so a long hard look at your browser's preferences or internet options should help cure the machine's forgetfulness.

Not even close. That phrase is our acknowledgement that much of scholarly research involves building on what others have already discovered. It's taken from Sir Isaac Newton's famous quote, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

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Reference management. Clean and simple.

Google Scholar: the ultimate guide

What is Google Scholar?

Why is google scholar better than google for finding research papers, the google scholar search results page, the first two lines: core bibliographic information, quick full text-access options, "cited by" count and other useful links, tips for searching google scholar, 1. google scholar searches are not case sensitive, 2. use keywords instead of full sentences, 3. use quotes to search for an exact match, 3. add the year to the search phrase to get articles published in a particular year, 4. use the side bar controls to adjust your search result, 5. use boolean operator to better control your searches, google scholar advanced search interface, customizing search preferences and options, using the "my library" feature in google scholar, the scope and limitations of google scholar, alternatives to google scholar, country-specific google scholar sites, frequently asked questions about google scholar, related articles.

Google Scholar (GS) is a free academic search engine that can be thought of as the academic version of Google. Rather than searching all of the indexed information on the web, it searches repositories of:

• universities
• scholarly websites

This is generally a smaller subset of the pool that Google searches. It's all done automatically, but most of the search results tend to be reliable scholarly sources.

However, Google is typically less careful about what it includes in search results than more curated, subscription-based academic databases like Scopus and Web of Science . As a result, it is important to take some time to assess the credibility of the resources linked through Google Scholar.

➡️ Take a look at our guide on the best academic databases .

One advantage of using Google Scholar is that the interface is comforting and familiar to anyone who uses Google. This lowers the learning curve of finding scholarly information .

There are a number of useful differences from a regular Google search. Google Scholar allows you to:

• copy a formatted citation in different styles including MLA and APA
• export bibliographic data (BibTeX, RIS) to use with reference management software
• explore other works have cited the listed work
• easily find full text versions of the article

Although it is free to search in Google Scholar, most of the content is not freely available. Google does its best to find copies of restricted articles in public repositories. If you are at an academic or research institution, you can also set up a library connection that allows you to see items that are available through your institution.

The Google Scholar results page differs from the Google results page in a few key ways. The search result page is, however, different and it is worth being familiar with the different pieces of information that are shown. Let's have a look at the results for the search term "machine learning.”

• The first line of each result provides the title of the document (e.g. of an article, book, chapter, or report).
• The second line provides the bibliographic information about the document, in order: the author(s), the journal or book it appears in, the year of publication, and the publisher.

Clicking on the title link will bring you to the publisher’s page where you may be able to access more information about the document. This includes the abstract and options to download the PDF.

To the far right of the entry are more direct options for obtaining the full text of the document. In this example, Google has also located a publicly available PDF of the document hosted at umich.edu . Note, that it's not guaranteed that it is the version of the article that was finally published in the journal.

Below the text snippet/abstract you can find a number of useful links.

• Cited by : the cited by link will show other articles that have cited this resource. That is a super useful feature that can help you in many ways. First, it is a good way to track the more recent research that has referenced this article, and second the fact that other researches cited this document lends greater credibility to it. But be aware that there is a lag in publication type. Therefore, an article published in 2017 will not have an extensive number of cited by results. It takes a minimum of 6 months for most articles to get published, so even if an article was using the source, the more recent article has not been published yet.
• Versions : this link will display other versions of the article or other databases where the article may be found, some of which may offer free access to the article.
• Quotation mark icon : this will display a popup with commonly used citation formats such as MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard, and Vancouver that may be copied and pasted. Note, however, that the Google Scholar citation data is sometimes incomplete and so it is often a good idea to check this data at the source. The "cite" popup also includes links for exporting the citation data as BibTeX or RIS files that any major reference manager can import.

Pro tip: Use a reference manager like Paperpile to keep track of all your sources. Paperpile integrates with Google Scholar and many popular academic research engines and databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons and later cite them in thousands of citation styles:

Although Google Scholar limits each search to a maximum of 1,000 results , it's still too much to explore, and you need an effective way of locating the relevant articles. Here’s a list of pro tips that will help you save time and search more effectively.

You don’t need to worry about case sensitivity when you’re using Google scholar. In other words, a search for "Machine Learning" will produce the same results as a search for "machine learning.”

Let's say your research topic is about self driving cars. For a regular Google search we might enter something like " what is the current state of the technology used for self driving cars ". In Google Scholar, you will see less than ideal results for this query .

The trick is to build a list of keywords and perform searches for them like self-driving cars, autonomous vehicles, or driverless cars. Google Scholar will assist you on that: if you start typing in the search field you will see related queries suggested by Scholar!

If you put your search phrase into quotes you can search for exact matches of that phrase in the title and the body text of the document. Without quotes, Google Scholar will treat each word separately.

This means that if you search national parks , the words will not necessarily appear together. Grouped words and exact phrases should be enclosed in quotation marks.

A search using “self-driving cars 2015,” for example, will return articles or books published in 2015.

Using the options in the left hand panel you can further restrict the search results by limiting the years covered by the search, the inclusion or exclude of patents, and you can sort the results by relevance or by date.

Searches are not case sensitive, however, there are a number of Boolean operators you can use to control the search and these must be capitalized.

• AND requires both of the words or phrases on either side to be somewhere in the record.
• NOT can be placed in front of a word or phrases to exclude results which include them.
• OR will give equal weight to results which match just one of the words or phrases on either side.

➡️ Read more about how to efficiently search online databases for academic research .

In case you got overwhelmed by the above options, here’s some illustrative examples:

Tip: Use the advanced search features in Google Scholar to narrow down your search results.

You can gain even more fine-grained control over your search by using the advanced search feature. This feature is available by clicking on the hamburger menu in the upper left and selecting the "Advanced search" menu item.

Adjusting the Google Scholar settings is not necessary for getting good results, but offers some additional customization, including the ability to enable the above-mentioned library integrations.

The settings menu is found in the hamburger menu located in the top left of the Google Scholar page. The settings are divided into five sections:

• Collections to search: by default Google scholar searches articles and includes patents, but this default can be changed if you are not interested in patents or if you wish to search case law instead.
• Bibliographic manager: you can export relevant citation data via the “Bibliography manager” subsection.
• Languages: if you wish for results to return only articles written in a specific subset of languages, you can define that here.
• Library links: as noted, Google Scholar allows you to get the Full Text of articles through your institution’s subscriptions, where available. Search for, and add, your institution here to have the relevant link included in your search results.
• Button: the Scholar Button is a Chrome extension which adds a dropdown search box to your toolbar. This allows you to search Google Scholar from any website. Moreover, if you have any text selected on the page and then click the button it will display results from a search on those words when clicked.

When signed in, Google Scholar adds some simple tools for keeping track of and organizing the articles you find. These can be useful if you are not using a full academic reference manager.

All the search results include a “save” button at the end of the bottom row of links, clicking this will add it to your "My Library".

To help you provide some structure, you can create and apply labels to the items in your library. Appended labels will appear at the end of the article titles. For example, the following article has been assigned a “RNA” label:

Within your Google Scholar library, you can also edit the metadata associated with titles. This will often be necessary as Google Scholar citation data is often faulty.

There is no official statement about how big the Scholar search index is, but unofficial estimates are in the range of about 160 million , and it is supposed to continue to grow by several million each year.

Yet, Google Scholar does not return all resources that you may get in search at you local library catalog. For example, a library database could return podcasts, videos, articles, statistics, or special collections. For now, Google Scholar has only the following publication types:

• Journal articles : articles published in journals. It's a mixture of articles from peer reviewed journals, predatory journals and pre-print archives.
• Books : links to the Google limited version of the text, when possible.
• Book chapters : chapters within a book, sometimes they are also electronically available.
• Book reviews : reviews of books, but it is not always apparent that it is a review from the search result.
• Conference proceedings : papers written as part of a conference, typically used as part of presentation at the conference.
• Court opinions .
• Patents : Google Scholar only searches patents if the option is selected in the search settings described above.

The information in Google Scholar is not cataloged by professionals. The quality of the metadata will depend heavily on the source that Google Scholar is pulling the information from. This is a much different process to how information is collected and indexed in scholarly databases such as Scopus or Web of Science .

➡️ Visit our list of the best academic databases .

Google Scholar is by far the most frequently used academic search engine , but it is not the only one. Other academic search engines include:

• Science.gov
• Semantic Scholar
• scholar.google.fr : Sur les épaules d'un géant
• scholar.google.es (Google Académico): A hombros de gigantes
• scholar.google.pt (Google Académico): Sobre os ombros de gigantes
• scholar.google.de : Auf den Schultern von Riesen

➡️ Once you’ve found some research, it’s time to read it. Take a look at our guide on how to read a scientific paper .

No. Google Scholar is a bibliographic search engine rather than a bibliographic database. In order to qualify as a database Google Scholar would need to have stable identifiers for its records.

No. Google Scholar is an academic search engine, but the records found in Google Scholar are scholarly sources.

No. Google Scholar collects research papers from all over the web, including grey literature and non-peer reviewed papers and reports.

Google Scholar does not provide any full text content itself, but links to the full text article on the publisher page, which can either be open access or paywalled content. Google Scholar tries to provide links to free versions, when possible.

The easiest way to access Google scholar is by using The Google Scholar Button. This is a browser extension that allows you easily access Google Scholar from any web page. You can install it from the Chrome Webstore .

How to Use Google Scholar for Research: A Complete Guide

To remain competitive, Research and Development (R&D) teams must utilize all of the resources available to them. Google Scholar can be a powerful asset for R&D professionals who are looking to quickly find relevant sources related to their project.  With its sophisticated search engine capabilities, advanced filtering options, and alert notifications, using Google Scholar for research allows teams to easily locate reliable information in an efficient manner. Want to learn how to use google scholar for research? This blog post will cover how to use google scholar for research, how R&D professionals can exploit the potential of Google Scholar to uncover novel discoveries related to their projects, as well as remain apprised of advancements in their area.

Table of Contents

What is Google Scholar?

Overview of google scholar, searching with google scholar, finding relevant sources with google scholar, exploring related topics, evaluating sources found on google scholar, staying up to date with google scholar alerts, faqs in relation to how to use google scholar for research, how do i use google scholar for research, can you use google scholar for research papers, why is it important to use google scholar for research, are google scholar articles credible.

Google Scholar is a powerful research platform that enables users to quickly find, access, and evaluate scholarly information. It provides easy access to academic literature from all disciplines, including books, journal articles, conference papers, and more. Google Scholar offers researchers a wide range of tools for searching the web for the relevant content as well as ways to keep up with new developments in their field.

Google Scholar i s an online search engine designed specifically for finding scholarly literature on the internet. Google Scholar provides access to a vast array of scholarly literature from renowned universities and publishers around the world, simplifying the process of locating relevant material on any subject. In addition to its comprehensive indexing capabilities, Google Scholar also includes advanced search features such as citation tracking and alert notifications when new results are published in your chosen areas of interest.

The platform makes it a breeze for users to traverse multiple facets of a given topic by providing them with an array of different filters they can apply when conducting searches – these include things such as author name or publication date range; language; type (e.g., book chapter vs journal article); source material (e.g., open access only); etc Moreover, many results found through this platform come equipped with full-text PDFs available for download – so you don’t have to worry about pesky paywalls blocking your path while doing research.

Google Scholar is an invaluable resource for research and development teams, offering quick access to a wealth of scholarly information. Utilizing the proper search approaches, you can quickly locate precisely what you need by employing Google Scholar. Let’s look now at how to refine your results with advanced search techniques.

Key Takeaway:  Google Scholar is a powerful research platform that gives researchers an array of tools to quickly locate, access and evaluate scholarly information. It provides users with advanced search features such as citation tracking and alert notifications, along with easy-to-apply filters for narrowing down results by author name or publication date range – making it the go-to tool for any researcher looking to cut through the noise.

Exploring with Google Scholar can be a useful approach to quickly locate applicable scholarly material. There are several different strategies that can be used to get the most out of this powerful tool.

Basic google scholar search strategies involve entering a few keywords or phrases into the search bar and then refining your results using filters, sorting options, and related topics. This method is ideal for those who require a rapid search of information without needing to expend an excessive amount of time researching exact terms, especially for those unfamiliar with searching databases such as Google Scholar. It’s also useful for those who don’t have a lot of experience in searching databases like Google Scholar. 

Advanced search strategies allow users to take advantage of more sophisticated features such as Boolean operators , wildcards, and phrase searches. These tools make it easier to narrow down results by specifying exactly what you’re looking for or excluding irrelevant sources from your search results. Advanced searchers should also pay attention to synonyms when crafting their queries since these can help broaden the scope of their searches while still providing relevant results.

Finally, refining your results is key in order to ensure that you only see sources that are truly relevant and authoritative on the topic at hand. Filters such as date range, publication type, language, author name, etc., can help refine your query so that only high-quality sources appear in your list of results. Sorting options provide users with the ability to prioritize documents, enabling them to quickly locate relevant materials without needing to review a large number of irrelevant ones. 

Utilizing Google Scholar can be advantageous for swiftly finding pertinent research materials, but it is essential to comprehend the search strategies and filters at hand in order to maximize your searches. By understanding how to identify keywords and phrases, explore related topics, and utilize sorting options and filters, you can ensure that you are finding all of the relevant sources for your research project. 

Key Takeaway:  Google Scholar is a great tool for quickly locating relevant research sources. Advanced searchers can make use of Boolean operators, wildcards and phrase searches to narrow down their results while basic search strategies such as entering keywords into the search bar work just fine too. Additionally, refining your results with filters and sorting options helps ensure that you only see high-quality sources related to your topic at hand.

Locating applicable materials via Google Scholar can be a challenging endeavor, particularly for those unfamiliar with the research process. To facilitate the research process, employing various strategies can expedite and refine the search for relevant sources through Google Scholar. 

Making use of keywords and phrases is a powerful method for finding pertinent sources on Google Scholar. It is important to identify key terms related to your topic or research question so you can narrow down the results. Additionally, using quotation marks around multiple words will allow you to get more precise results as it searches for exact matches instead of individual words within a phrase.

Exploring related topics helps provide additional context when researching on Google Scholar. This includes looking at previous studies conducted on similar topics or areas of interest, which provides further insight into potential sources available from other researchers’ work in the field. Utilizing tools such as co-citation analysis also allows users to explore how different authors have been cited together over time by providing visualizations based on their connections and relationships with each other through citations.

Utilizing filters and sorting options such as language, date range, publication type, etc., enables users to refine their search even further so they only receive results that match their specific criteria. Sorting options like relevance ranking or date published also make it easier for them to find what they need without having to sift through hundreds of irrelevant documents manually. By utilizing these features effectively, researchers can save valuable time when searching for relevant sources in Google Scholar since all the information they need will already be organized accordingly right away, saving them an hour’s worth of manual labor.

By utilizing Google Scholar, research teams can quickly and easily find relevant sources for their projects. With the next heading, we will explore how to evaluate these sources for credibility and authority.

Key Takeaway:  Utilizing the right keywords and phrases, exploring related topics, and utilizing filters are essential techniques for finding relevant sources quickly with Google Scholar. By taking advantage of the available features, you can swiftly and accurately pinpoint documents that meet your criteria.

To assess the reliability and authority of each source, consider factors such as the publication’s reputation, author credentials in the field, and when it was published. To do this, look for publications from reputable journals or authors with credentials in the field. Furthermore, consider when the source was issued – more modern pieces may be more pertinent and exact than older ones.

It is advantageous to be aware of the distinct kinds of publications that can appear in search results, such as scholarly articles, books, conference papers, and dissertations; each offering various degrees of precision and accuracy depending on their intent and target audience. 

For example, a book chapter may provide an overview of a topic while a peer-reviewed journal article will contain more detailed information backed up by research evidence. Similarly, conference papers are typically shorter summaries of research projects whereas dissertations offer comprehensive coverage including methodology and analysis results. Understanding these differences helps you identify which sources are most suitable for your needs when conducting research using Google Scholar.

Evaluating sources found on Google Scholar is an important step to ensure the credibility and accuracy of research results. By setting up alerts with Google Scholar, you can stay informed about new research findings and manage your subscriptions accordingly.

Maximize your research efforts with Google Scholar. Assess credibility & authority, pay attention to the date of publication & understand different types of publications. #ResearchTips #GoogleScholar Click to Tweet

Google Scholar is an invaluable tool for staying up to date with the latest research in your field. With its alert feature, you can easily set up notifications so that you’re always on top of new developments. Setting up alerts and managing them effectively will help ensure that you never miss a beat when it comes to relevant information.

Begin your research by utilizing Google Scholar’s sophisticated search features such as keyword and phrase searches, sorting results according to relevance or date of publication, and excluding unrelated sources. Once you’ve identified the most pertinent topics related to your research interests, set up alerts for each one by clicking on the bell icon in the upper right corner of the page. This will allow Google Scholar to send notifications whenever new content is published about those specific topics.

When setting up alerts in Google Scholar, make sure that they are tailored specifically toward what matters most to you – this could include certain authors or journals whose work has particular relevance to your own research projects. You can also adjust how often these alerts are sent (daily or weekly) depending on how frequently new material is being published within those fields of study. Additionally, if there are any other sources outside of Google Scholar which may contain useful information (such as blogs), consider adding their RSS feeds into your alert system too so that all relevant updates appear in one place.

Finally, don’t forget to manage existing alerts regularly; this means keeping track of which ones are still relevant and deleting any no longer needed from time to time (this helps keep clutter down). Additionally, try experimenting with different combinations/filters within each alert until you find what works best for keeping yourself informed without getting overwhelmed with notifications.

Key Takeaway:  Utilize Google Scholar to stay up-to-date on the latest research in your field – create tailored alerts for specific topics and authors, adjust frequency of notifications as needed, and manage existing alerts regularly. Stay ahead of the curve by gathering all pertinent news in one location.

Google Scholar is a great tool for conducting research. It provides access to millions of scholarly articles, books, and other sources from across the web. Google scholar works by entering keywords related to your topic into the search bar at the top of the page to quickly locate relevant scholarly articles, books, and other sources from across the web. Then narrow down your results using filters such as date range or publication type.

Finally, skim through the abstracts and full texts to pinpoint useful information for your research project.

Yes, Google Scholar is a great resource for research papers. It offers access to an extensive range of scholarly literature from journals, books, and conference proceedings. The search engine provides a convenient way to locate the most recent research in any area by entering keywords or phrases.

Advanced capabilities, such as citation monitoring, can be utilized to track the latest citations of one’s own or others’ work.

Google Scholar is an invaluable tool for research, as it provides access to a vast range of scholarly literature from around the world. It allows researchers to quickly and easily search through millions of publications and journals in order to find relevant information.

Google Scholar also offers the ability to trace connections between different works, allowing researchers to stay abreast of recent developments in their field. With its user-friendly interface, Google Scholar makes researching easier than ever before.

Yes, Google Scholar articles are credible. They provide access to a wide range of academic literature from reliable sources such as peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. Expert scrutiny has been conducted to guarantee the accuracy and excellence of the articles before they are put up on Google Scholar. Additionally, each article includes information about its authorship and citation count which can help readers assess their credibility further.

Google Scholar provides a convenient way to uncover pertinent material, assess the quality of these sources with ease, and be informed about novel advancements in your area through notifications.  Thus, R&D supervisors should know how to use google scholar for research. Also, R&D supervisors considering utilizing Google Scholar for investigation ought to recall that this apparatus should not supplant customary techniques, for example, peer survey or manual searching; rather it should supplement them.

With its powerful search capabilities and ability to keep researchers informed about their fields of interest, using Google Scholar for research can save time while providing more accurate results than ever before.

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How to Use Google Scholar for Academic Research

Last Updated: May 22, 2024 Fact Checked

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How to Cite an Article

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This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Janice Tieperman . Janice is a professional and creative writer who has worked at wikiHow since 2019. With both a B.A. and M.A. in English from East Stroudsburg University, she has a passion for writing a wide variety of content for anyone and everyone. In her free time, you can find her working on a new crochet pattern, listening to true crime podcasts, or tackling a new creative writing project. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 161,848 times. Learn more...

Google Scholar is a Google product specifically designed for searching academic sources, including journal articles, books, dissertations, and abstracts from various fields. This wikiHow article teaches you how to use Google Scholar to research any topic and cite it in your own work.

Quick Steps

• Go to https://scholar.google.com .
• Link your institution's library in ☰ > Settings > Library Links
• Use the search bar to search for your topic.
• Use the side menu to the left to narrow your search.
• Click Advanced Search in the menu ( ☰ ) to access advanced search options.
• Click an article title to view the full text (or where you can find it).

How to Do a Basic Search

• You can access Google Scholar via computer or mobile.
• The Google Chrome browser also has a Google Scholar Button you can add to make searching easier. You can add the Google Scholar extension from the Chrome Web Store . [1] X Research source

• Click the icon with three lines ( ☰ ) in the upper-right corner.
• Click Settings .
• Click Library Links .
• Enter the name of your library or academic institution.
• Click the Magnifying Glass icon.
• Click the checkbox next to your library (you can select up to 5).
• Click Save .

• For instance, if you are interested in Vietnamese culture, you could type in ‘the culture of the Vietnamese people.’
• Using as few search terms as possible will return broader results. For instance, you could search for ‘Vietnamese people’ or ‘Vietnamese culture.’ Use keywords instead of full sentences.
• If you have trouble finding relevant results, try an additional or different search term. For instance, if you are interested in the everyday life of Vietnamese people, and ‘Vietnamese people’ isn’t returning useful results, try searching for ‘Vietnamese people customs.’

• For example, if you search for ‘Vietnamese Culture,’ you might see a result for the article “Culture Shock: A Review of Vietnamese Culture and its Concepts of Health and Disease,” and see that it is by M.D. Nguyen, and was published in the Western Journal of Medicine in 1985.
• You might be interested in the specific topic (Vietnamese culture and health), the author, or the fact that it was published in 1985.
• You might also see a brief abstract or snippet of text from the result, which can help you determine if it is relevant to your search.

• Clicking on a search result might take you to the full text, an abstract, a snippet, or a limited preview.
• If you see "PDF" to the right of the article title, click this link to download the text as a PDF.
• If you are logged into your institutional account, Google Scholar may provide links for full-text access. For instance, if you are logged into your Harvard account, look for “Availability at Harvard” and/or “FindIt@Harvard” for more information about whether or not you can access the full text of particular sources.
• If you don’t have an institutional or library account, some restricted sources may have the option of paying a fee to view them.
• If a source you want to view is restricted, click “All Versions” at the bottom of the citation information. If the source is accessible via other databases, you might be able to find one that is non-restricted.

How to Do an Advanced Search

• To search for case law, click the icon with three lines ( ☰ ) in the upper-right corner, then click Case Law .

• By typing "OR" (must be capitalized) between search terms, Google Scholar will retrieve results containing either term. If you are interested in the culture of both Vietnam and Thailand, you can search for ‘Vietnam OR Thailand culture’.
• Typing "AND" (capitalized) between search terms will search for articles containing both search terms.
• Enter "NOT" (capitalized) before a search term will eliminate it from the results. For instance, if you are researching Vietnamese culture but do not want to find results related to the Vietnam War, searching for ‘Vietnamese culture NOT war’ will stop Google Scholar from giving results that use the key term “war.”

• Searching for an exact phrase by putting it in quotation marks. Putting the search terms 'Vietnamese culinary traditions' will return all sources containing the words traditions, culinary, and Vietnamese all individually, while searching for '“Vietnamese culinary traditions”' (in quotation marks) will only return results with that exact phrase
• Requesting sources with a particular term in the title using the command “intitle:”. If you want to find works on Vietnamese food traditions with the word “culinary” in the title, search for ‘Vietnamese intitle:culinary’.
• Restricting results to those by a particular author by entering “author:” before the name. For example, if you want to find works on Vietnamese culture by M. Thomas, enter ‘Vietnamese culture author:Thomas, M.’

• Click Advanced Search

• with all of the words: This search bar will return sources that feature any of the words you enter into this bar in no particular order.
• with the exact phrase: This search bar will return sources with the exact phrase you enter into this bar rather than searching for each word individually.
• with at least one of the words: This search bar will return sources that feature at least one of the words you enter, but not necessarily all of them.
• without the words: This search bar will exclude sources from your search that you enter into this bar.
• where my words occur: This option allows you to select whether your search applies to the entire article or just the title.
• Return article authored by: This search bar allows you to specify an author's name in your search.
• Return articles published in: This search bar allows you to specify a publication or journal in which your article appeared.
• Return articles dated between: This allows you to specify a date range for when your article was published.

• Keep in mind that Google Scholar only tracks citations in works that the service already indexes. This means, for instance, that it will not show if a source is cited in a journal that Google Scholar does not include in its searches.

• You may need to make minor adjustments to the formatting, such as adding a hanging indent for MLA.

Ways to Get the Most Out of Google Scholar

• For instance, creating an alert for ‘Vietnamese cultural traditions’ will send you an email anytime Google Scholar finds new sources using those key terms.

• To access your library, click the icon with three lines ( ☰ ) in the upper-left corner to open the menu, and then click My Library in the menu to the left.

• Many of its search results are restricted.
• You cannot limit it to the type of source you want to find (e.g., books only or articles only).
• You cannot know which databases Google Scholar uses to find its search results.
• There are sometimes errors in the way Google Scholar records data (e.g., journal names may mistakenly be listed as authors)
• Some results that Google Scholar retrieves (such as personal web pages, non-peer-reviewed articles, etc.) may not be traditionally-defined scholarship.
• Some sources may not be included in a Google Scholar search that you may find at your local library. For example, Google Scholar does not return sources like podcasts, videos, statistics, or special collections.

Expert Q&A

• If you use a citation manager, such as EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, or RefWorks, you may be able to configure it to sync with Google Scholar. Check the user guides for the manager you use to see if this option is available to you. [6] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• In addition to Google Scholar, librarian Kim Gillingham notes that “most public and university libraries have databases providing access to scholarly articles. Don’t hesitate to ask a librarian for guidance—they are there to help.” Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/google-scholar-button/ldipcbpaocekfooobnbcddclnhejkcpn?hl=en&pli=1
• ↑ https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/help.html
• ↑ https://www.otago.ac.nz/library/pdf/Google_Scholar_Tips.pdf
• ↑ https://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en
• ↑ https://lib.utsa.edu/find-information/google-scholar/

About This Article

1. Go to http://scholar.google.com 2. Sign in. 3. Sign in to an institution or library. 4. Enter search terms. 5. Click the down-arrow to use advanced search. 6. Click the magnifying glass. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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18 Google Scholar tips all students should know

Dec 13, 2022

[[read-time]] min read

Think of this guide as your personal research assistant.

“It’s hard to pick your favorite kid,” Anurag Acharya says when I ask him to talk about a favorite Google Scholar feature he’s worked on. “I work on product, engineering, operations, partnerships,” he says. He’s been doing it for 18 years, which as of this month, happens to be how long Google Scholar has been around.

Google Scholar is also one of Google’s longest-running services. The comprehensive database of research papers, legal cases and other scholarly publications was the fourth Search service Google launched, Anurag says. In honor of this very important tool’s 18th anniversary, I asked Anurag to share 18 things you can do in Google Scholar that you might have missed.

1. Copy article citations in the style of your choice.

With a simple click of the cite button (which sits below an article entry), Google Scholar will give you a ready-to-use citation for the article in five styles, including APA, MLA and Chicago. You can select and copy the one you prefer.

2. Dig deeper with related searches.

Google Scholar’s related searches can help you pinpoint your research; you’ll see them show up on a page in between article results. Anurag describes it like this: You start with a big topic — like “cancer” — and follow up with a related search like “lung cancer” or “colon cancer” to explore specific kinds of cancer.

Related searches can help you find what you’re looking for.

3. And don’t miss the related articles.

This is another great way to find more papers similar to one you found helpful — you can find this link right below an entry.

4. Read the papers you find.

Scholarly articles have long been available only by subscription. To keep you from having to log in every time you see a paper you’re interested in, Scholar works with libraries and publishers worldwide to integrate their subscriptions directly into its search results. Look for a link marked [PDF] or [HTML]. This also includes preprints and other free-to-read versions of papers.

5. Access Google Scholar tools from anywhere on the web with the Scholar Button browser extension.

The Scholar Button browser extension is sort of like a mini version of Scholar that can move around the web with you. If you’re searching for something, hitting the extension icon will show you studies about that topic, and if you’re reading a study, you can hit that same button to find a version you read, create a citation or to save it to your Scholar library.

Install the Scholar Button Chrome browser extension to access Google Scholar from anywhere on the web.

6. Learn more about authors through Scholar profiles.

There are many times when you’ll want to know more about the researchers behind the ideas you’re looking into. You can do this by clicking on an author’s name when it’s hyperlinked in a search result. You’ll find all of their work as well as co-authors, articles they’re cited in and so on. You can also follow authors from their Scholar profile to get email updates about their work, or about when and where their work is cited.

7. Easily find topic experts.

One last thing about author profiles: If there are topics listed below an author’s name on their profile, you can click on these areas of expertise and you’ll see a page of more authors who are researching and publishing on these topics, too.

8. Search for court opinions with the “Case law” button.

Scholar is the largest free database of U.S. court opinions. When you search for something using Google Scholar, you can select the “Case law” button below the search box to see legal cases your keywords are referenced in. You can read the opinions and a summary of what they established.

9. See how those court opinions have been cited.

If you want to better understand the impact of a particular piece of case law, you can select “How Cited,” which is below an entry, to see how and where the document has been cited. For example, here is the How Cited page for Marbury v. Madison , a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that established that courts can strike down unconstitutional laws or statutes.

10. Understand how a legal opinion depends on another.

When you’re looking at how case laws are cited within Google Scholar, click on “Cited by” and check out the horizontal bars next to the different results. They indicate how relevant the cited opinion is in the court decision it’s cited within. You will see zero, one, two or three bars before each result. Those bars indicate the extent to which the new opinion depends on and refers to the cited case.

In the Cited by page for New York Times Company v. Sullivan, court cases with three bars next to their name heavily reference the original case. One bar indicates less reliance.

11. Sign up for Google Scholar alerts.

Want to stay up to date on a specific topic? Create an alert for a Google Scholar search for your topics and you’ll get email updates similar to Google Search alerts. Another way to keep up with research in your area is to follow new articles by leading researchers. Go to their profiles and click “Follow.” If you’re a junior grad student, you may consider following articles related to your advisor’s research topics, for instance.

12. Save interesting articles to your library.

It’s easy to go down fascinating rabbit hole after rabbit hole in Google Scholar. Don’t lose track of your research and use the save option that pops up under search results so articles will be in your library for later reading.

13. Keep your library organized with labels.

Labels aren’t only for Gmail! You can create labels within your Google Scholar library so you can keep your research organized. Click on “My library,” and then the “Manage labels…” option to create a new label.

14. If you’re a researcher, share your research with all your colleagues.

Many research funding agencies around the world now mandate that funded articles should become publicly free to read within a year of publication — or sooner. Scholar profiles list such articles to help researchers keep track of them and open up access to ones that are still locked down. That means you can immediately see what is currently available from researchers you’re interested in and how many of their papers will soon be publicly free to read.

15. Look through Scholar’s annual top publications and papers.

Every year, Google Scholar releases the top publications based on the most-cited papers. That list (available in 11 languages) will also take you to each publication’s top papers — this takes into account the “h index,” which measures how much impact an article has had. It’s an excellent place to start a research journey as well as get an idea about the ideas and discoveries researchers are currently focused on.

16. Get even more specific with Advanced Search.

Click on the hamburger icon on the upper left-hand corner and select Advanced Search to fine-tune your queries. For example, articles with exact words or a particular phrase in the title or articles from a particular journal and so on.

17. Find extra help on Google Scholar’s help page.

It might sound obvious, but there’s a wealth of useful information to be found here — like how often the database is updated, tips on formatting searches and how you can use your library subscriptions when you’re off-campus (looking at you, college students!). Oh, and you’ll even learn the origin of that quote on Google Scholar’s home page.

18. Keep up with Google Scholar news.

Don’t forget to check out the Google Scholar blog for updates on new features and tips for using this tool even better.

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Google Scholar: Search Google Scholar

Search tips for google scholar.

Google Scholar is very similar to Google; you can use many of the same search options.

• Google Scholar automatically places AND between words:

nurse stress retention

• Place quotation marks around phrases or titles:

"social learning theory"

"On the Origin of Species"

• Search for alternate terms using OR, with the terms enclosed in parentheses:

("first grade" OR "second grade")

(theory OR model)

You can also use the advanced Google Scholar search to create your search string. Creating a complex Google Scholar search can be difficult.

A good Google Scholar strategy is to try multiple searches, adjusting your keywords with each search.

• Learn more about Google Scholars advanced search.

Cited By feature in Google Scholar

Use the Cited by link to find articles and books that cite a specific article.

The cited by feature is a great way to find more recent articles and to  trace an idea from its original source up to the present.

• Start by locating a single item in Google Scholar.

• Click the Cited by link to see a list of the items that cite your original item. Older and more influential items will have a higher number of Cited by results.

Advanced search options

For more complex searches, try Google Scholar's Advanced Search page.

• To access the advanced search option, click on the three line icon in the upper left corner of the Google Scholar search page.

The advanced search allows you to search more precisely. 

• Use the articles dated between option to limit to specific years.
• Try the authored by  search box to see resources by a specific author
• Explore the other search options to see what's most effective for your search, such as searching in specific journals, searching for exact phrases, and using different keyword strategies.

Watch a search

• Watch a search for a complicated topic using the advanced search feature.

See how the search differs between a library database and Google Scholar.

• Watch a search for a specific article by title.

Video: Google Scholar Advanced Search

(1 min 18 sec) Recorded January 2018  Transcript 

Video: Find an article by title in Google Scholar

(2 min 38 sec) Recorded January 2018  Transcript 

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Google Scholar Search Strategies

• Getting Started
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Start with Settings

Step 1 : Begin by going to the Google Scholar homepage

Step 2 : In the upper-right hand corner, select "Sign In". Here you will log-on to your Gmail account. You must have a Google Account to create a profile on Google Scholar

Step 3 : Manage Your settings

Step 4 : enable your library, step 5 : set up your google scholar profile ​ **for researchers and faculty only.

Step 6 : Begin using Google Scholar for Research ** For researchers, faculty AND students

For anything not covered in this guide, including FAQ's and Publisher Support check out the Google Scholar About Page . 

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Using Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a special version of Google specially designed for searching scholarly literature. It covers peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research.

A Harvard ID and PIN are required for Google Scholar in order to access the full text of books, journal articles, etc. provided by licensed resources to which Harvard subscribes. Indviduals outside of Harvard may access Google Scholar directly at http://scholar.google.com/ , but they will not have access to the full text of articles provided by Harvard Library E-Resources .

Browsing Search Results

The following screenshots illustrate some of the features that accompany individual records in Google Scholar's results lists.

Find It@Harvard – Locates an electronic version of the work (when available) through Harvard's subscription library resources. If no electronic full text is available, a link to the appropriate HOLLIS Catalog record is provided for alternative formats.

Group of – Finds other articles included in this group of scholarly works, possibly preliminary, which you may be able to access. Examples include preprints, abstracts, conference papers or other adaptations.

Cited By – Identifies other papers that have cited articles in the group.

Related Articles - The list of related articles is ranked primarily by how similar these articles are to the original result, but also takes into account the relevance of each paper. Finding sets of related papers and books is often a great way for novices to get acquainted with a topic.

Cached - The "Cached" link is the snapshot that Google took of the page when they crawled the web. The page may have changed since that time and the cached page may reference images which are no longer available.

Web Search – Searches for information on the Web about this work using the Google search engine.

BL Direct – Purchase the full text of the article through the British Library. Once transferred into BL Direct, users can also link to the full collection of The British Library document supply content. Prices for the service are expressed in British pounds. Abstracts for some documents are provided.

The Advanced Search feature in Google Scholar allows researchers to limit their query to particular authors, publications, dates, and subject areas.  

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Using Google for Research

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What is Google Scholar?

Google Scholar searches for scholarly literature in a simple, familiar way. You can search across many disciplines and sources at once to find articles, books, theses, court opinions, and content from academic publishers, professional societies, some academic web sites, and more. See the Google Scholar inclusion guidelines for more about what’s in Google Scholar.

Advanced Search Tips

For more precise searching, use Google's  Advanced Scholar Search Page

• To pull up the Advanced Scholar Search menu, go to the regular Google Scholar search page.
• In the upper left corner of the page, press the button made of three horizontal lines to open a new menu. 
• Advanced Search should be the second to last option in the newly-opened menu.

Or, try these tips:

Find content by an author:.

• Add the author's name to the search, or
• Use the "author:" operator (eg. aphasia author:jones finds articles about aphasia written by people named Jones)

Search for a phrase:

• Use "quotation marks" to find phrases (eg. "allegory of the cave" plato republic finds articles about Plato's cave allegory in The Republic )

Search by words in the title:

• Use the "intitle:" operator (eg. intitle:fellini finds articles with Fellini in the title]

Setting "Library Links" Preferences in Google Scholar

1. go to scholar.google.com , and click on the menu button (3 horizontal bars) in the upper left-hand corner of the screen..

2. In the menu that appears, click "Settings"

3. Click "Library links" in the left-hand menu. 

4. Search for NYU, and select only  "New York University Libraries - GetIt@NYU" then click "Save".

5. Conduct a new search in Google Scholar. Click the "GetIt@NYU" link next to each search result to get NYU Libraries-subscribed access to the article. If you are off campus, you will be prompted to log in with your NetID and password before being granted access to the full-text.

6. If you encounter a search result without a "GetIt@NYU" link next to it, try clicking on the "double arrow" button below it, and the link should appear.

• << Previous: Google Search
• Next: Google Books >>
• Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 1:48 PM
• URL: https://guides.nyu.edu/google

Google Scholar

• What is Google Scholar?
• How to Use Google Scholar

Basic Search Tips

Accessing articles from the web.

• Searching for Case Law
• Link to Jenks Library
• Advanced Searching
• Your Google Scholar Library
• Other Resources

Using Google Scholar

UTS Library. (2021, January 28). Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70_m6JQR7pw

This video, published by the University of Technology Sydney, gives a brief overview of how to use Google Scholar including what Google Scholar is, how to link your academic library, and basic search functions.

As shown in the video to the left, Google Scholar is relatively easy to use. Here are a few tips on making the best of your search inquiries. 

• Login to you Google account. Make sure you are logged into your personal Google account. This will allow you to save articles to your library, which is covered in the "Next Steps" page.
• Searching. Google Scholar, as a default, uses keyword searching. This means that the search looks for the words anywhere in the text or record.
• The Sweet Spot. Be careful to not have too broad or too narrow of a search query. Too broad and you have a lot of material to sift through. Too narrow and you might miss materials that can be helpful. For example, if you are looking for information on women in ancient Greece, searching "ancient greece" gives you 2,200,000 results. Searching for "women in ancient athens" gives you 338,000 hits. Our sweet spot would be "women in ancient greece" which returns 730,000 results.
• If a resource is available through Google Scholar, a pdf link will appear to the right of the resource. However, sometimes these pdfs are locked behind paywalls and you might not be able to access it.
• After linking to Jenks' resources (covered in "Next Steps" ), any resources that are available through library databases will have a "Check Jenks Full Text" or "Full Text @ Jenks" link to the right of the resource. 
• Developing Keywords In this video from Jenks Library, you'll learn how to develop search terms from a research question that you can then use to search in library resources.

• 8 Hacks for Using Google Scholar for Your Research Paper This article gives helpful tips and tricks for the search process including using citations to conduct backwards searching, using incognito to help with searching, defining keywords carefully, and more.

This video explains what to do when you find an article that is behind a paywall and also addresses how to request articles through Interlibrary Loan.

Case law, as defined by Nolo's Free Dictionary of Law Terms and Legal Definitions, is "the law based on judicial opinions (including decisions that interpret statutes), as opposed to law based on statutes, regulations, or other sources."

To search for case law on Google Scholar, just choose the "case law" option underneath the search bar on the homepage. Once you have selected "case law" you can choose to search a specific court system such as Federal, Massachusetts, etc. (Note: If you select a specific court system, the case law selection will no longer be selected. Don't worry, it will still search just through case law.)

• How to Find Free Case Law Online This research guide from the Library of Congress (LOC) gives a brief explanation about what types of case law can be found on Google Scholar. It also gives directions on how to search for case law on Google Scholar and provides a short, five minute video on doing legal research.
• << Previous: What is Google Scholar?
• Next: Link to Jenks Library >>
• Last Updated: May 11, 2023 12:12 PM
• URL: https://library.gordon.edu/google-scholar

Gordon College | 255 Grapevine Road, Wenham, MA 01984 | Telephone 978.927.2300

Library Tutorials: Google Scholar

• Himmelfarb Library Introduction
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Google Scholar General Information

What is Google Scholar?

Google Scholar is a subset of Google Web Search that specifically searches for scholarly literature, including articles, papers, theses, books and reports.  A Google Scholar search uses natural language. Your search is interdisciplinary, retrieving broad results. Each citation retrieved includes a “Cited by” reference which links to other articles that have used the retrieved article in its references. 

Accessing Google Scholar

If searching from on-campus or via the GW VPN, full-text links will automatically appear in your search. These links connect you to full-text electronic journals provided by Himmelfarb Library.

• Using Google Scholar at GW

Google Scholar Tutorials

• Using Google Scholar Quick tutorial covering the basics from Eastern Michigan University.
• Teacher's Guide on the Effective Use of Google Scholar Step by step directions from Google Engineer, Daniel Russell.
• Google Scholar Search Tips
• << Previous: DynaMed
• Next: Health Info @ Himmelfarb >>

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What is Google Scholar and how do I use it?

• Google Scholar

A Quick Look at Google Scholar

What is google scholar.

Google Scholar is a Web search engine that specifically searches scholarly literature and academic resources.

But my teacher said not to use Google! How is "Google Scholar" different from "Google"?

Google searches public Web content. Your teacher says "Don't use Google," meaning that you should not use the public Web content.

Google Scholar is different. It searches the same kinds of scholarly books, articles, and documents that you search in the Library's catalog and databases. The scholarly, authoritative focus of Google Scholar distinguishes it from ordinary Google.

So how is Google Scholar related to (and different from) the Library's databases?

There is overlap between the content in Google Scholar and the Library's individual databases. Also, many citations in Google Scholar will link to full text in the Library's databases or in publicly available databases. But Google Scholar will not contain everything that is in the Library's databases.

Google Scholar can be a convenient starting place, but it is not a comprehensive "one-stop shop." For more precise searching, more search features, and more content, use the Library's individual databases .

How do I search and view items in Google Scholar?

Searching is as easy as searching in regular Google. Start from the Library's Homepage to search SHSU's Google Scholar. Click on the Articles & More tab and locate the Google Scholar search box at the very bottom. Enter a search term or phrase, such as "bird flu."

Like regular Google, Google Scholar returns the most relevant results first, based on an item's full text, author, source, and the number of times it has been cited in other sources. Some actions are a little different from regular Google: clicking on a title may only take you to a citation or description, rather than to the full document itself. Google Scholar will not necessarily get you to the full text of every search result.

How do I find the full-text documents in my search results?

To find the full document, look for (1) a PDF or HTML link to the right of the article title, or (2) an Online Resources @ SHSU link. These links will help you find the full text of the document, either in a publicly available place or in one of the online databases offered by SHSU.

If you don't see these links or they don't take you to the full text, you can contact the Library Service Desk for help in finding the article. Some documents will be unavailable online, but they may be available in the library building or through Interlibrary Loan .

A final word of wisdom...

Keep in mind that Google Scholar is not perfect . For more precise searching, more search features, and more content, check out the Library's individual databases and online catalog .

• DEREE - The American College of Greece (ACG)
• John S. Bailey Library

Google Scholar Guide

• Advanced searching

Google Scholar provides several advanced searching options. These options may include the use of:

• the Advanced search features.
• Boolean and proximity operators.
• words as search operators.
• symbols as search operators.

The Advanced search features

Click the hamburger icon ( ) on the left-hand corner. This reveals a menu from which you could choose the Advanced search .

Once you select the Advanced search , a pop-up window with the available advanced search options appears.

You may use the following options:

• Find articles with all of the terms: Default search option. | Combines search terms. | Retrieves articles that include all search terms. | Narrows down search results.
• Find articles with the exact phrase: Retrieves articles which include the search terms when they appear together, as an exact phrase. | Narrows down search results.
• Find articles with at least one of the words: Retrieves articles which include either or all search terms. | Expands search results.
• Find articles without the words: Excludes search terms. | Narrows down search results.

You can specify where the words you are searching may appear, by using any of the following options:

• anywhere in the article: Default search option. | Returns articles which include the search terms in any part of the article; title or body. | Works in conjunction with any of the "Find articles" options.
• in the title of the article: Returns articles which include the search terms only in the title of the article. |  Works in conjunction with any of the "Find articles" options. 

There are three additional search options to use:

• Return articles authored by: Returns articles written by a particular author | Works in conjunction with any of the "Find articles" or "Return articles" options. | Narrows down search results.
• Return articles published in: Returns articles published in a particular periodical publication. | Works in conjunction with any of the "Find articles" or "Return articles" options. | Narrows down search results.
• Return articles dated between: Returns articles published in a particular date range. | Works in conjunction with any of the "Find articles" or "Return articles" options. | Narrows down search results.

Boolean operators

This type of search uses operators that help you narrow or broaden your search. The most common operators are AND , OR , NOT . Check the table below to see when and how to use them in Google Scholar.

Words as search operators

Google Scholar supports the use of words as search operators. These words are:

• intitle : Results include a specific search term in the title of the article.| Syntax: intitle:search term   Tip! Do not add a space after the colon.
• intext : Results include a specific search term in the body of the article.| Syntax: intext:search term   Tip! Do not add a space after the colon.
• author : Results include articles written by a specific author.| Syntax: author:"first name last name"   Tip! Do not add a space after the colon. Place quotation marks around the author's name.
• source : Results include articles published in a particular journal.| Syntax: source:"journal title"   Tip! Do not add a space after the colon. Place quotation marks around the journal title.
• ininventor : Results include patent related documents including the name of a patent inventor. Syntax: ininventor:"first name last name"   Tip! Do not add a space after the colon. Place quotation marks around the inventor's name.
• assignee : Results include patent related documents including the entity that is granted the ownership of the patent.| Syntax: assignee:"entity name"   Tip! Do not add a space after the colon. Place quotation marks around the entity name.

Symbols as search operators

Google Scholar supports the use of symbols as search operators. These symbols are:

• Quotation marks ( " " ): Results include the search terms when they appear as a phrase. Syntax: "search term A search term B"
• Hyphen (  -  ): You can use the hyphen to indicate that words are strongly connected. Syntax: search term A-search term B |  Tip! Do not add spaces before and after the hyphen.
• Hyphen (  -  ): You can use the hyphen to exclude words from a search query. Syntax: search term A -search term B |  Tip! Add a space after the first search terms, but do not add a space between the hyphen and the search term you want to exclude.
• << Previous: Basic searching
• Next: Saving results >>
• Library links setup
• Open access articles
• Basic searching
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• Evaluating results
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• Last updated: Dec 21, 2022 1:37 PM

Google Scholar

• Google Scholar Basics

Advanced Scholar Search

Accessing the advanced scholar search menu, advanced search features.

• Results Page

Much of the time, a simple keyword search will help you find what you need. However, there are times when you may want to have more control over what your search does. You may want to control the publication date, search for results by a particular author or in a particular journal, give synonyms, or remove unwanted results. When you need to do this, the Advanced Scholar Search menu can help. 

• In the upper left corner of the page, press the button made of three horizontal lines to open a new menu. 
• Advanced Search should be the second to last option in the newly-opened menu. 

The Advanced Scholar Search menu has eight ways of searching, organized into three broad sections. You are able to mix and match these different search options together.

All / Exact Phrase / At Least One / Without

Helps you control the search words you are searching with.

• Words typed into the first search bar must all be included in your result. This is how a regular Google Scholar search works.
• You can also do this in the regular search bar by putting the words in quotes. Ex. "myocardial infarction" 
• You can also do this in the regular search bar by putting "OR" in between your search words. Ex. Missouri politics OR government
• You can also do this in the regular search bar by putting a minus sign (-) before a word. Ex. Shakespeare -tragedies

Where My Words Occur

Controls where Google Scholar will look for your search words. 

• Selecting "anywhere in the article" will likely turn up a larger number of results, because the search engine can look for your keywords in more places. This is the Google Scholar default. 
• Selecting "in the title of the article" may help improve the relevance of your results, because if your keyword is in the title, it is likely more important to what the article is about.

Authored by/Published in/ Dated Between

• You can also do this in the regular search bar by putting "author:" before the author's name. Ex. intersectionality author:Crenshaw
• The second search bar lets you search for results in a particular  scholarly journal . Google Scholar understands many common ways of abbreviating journal titles.
• You can also adjust this from the results page . 
• << Previous: Google Scholar Basics
• Next: Results Page >>
• Last Updated: Jan 11, 2023 11:21 AM
• URL: https://semo.libguides.com/google-scholar

Internet Sources for Research Help Guide

• Online Library Resources
• Scholarly Resources
• Government Resources
• Primary Sources
• Critiquing Websites

Introduction

Google books, google scholar, advanced search, quick search tips.

Google can be a good resource for research, if it is used effectively.

There are specific techniques that you can use to be an effective Google searcher. Your job is to decide which Google database you should use in order to find the types of materials you need, as well as to create searches, or queries, that provide pertinent results.

On the left are the three main Google collections that are useful for doing scholarly research: "regular" Google, Google Books and Google Scholar. On the right are tips for search techniques that will help target your search in such a way that your search results should pertain to the subject you are researching, as well as to the type of material you need.

This is the "regular" Google that we all use.

This is the search engine that allows you to look through Google's huge collection of digitized full-text books.

Google Scholar collects and gives you access to a huge number of scholarly works, including full-text articles and books.

The Google Advanced Search page gives you the capability to create effective and efficient searches without having to use the Google short cuts.

With this search page, you can limit your search by language, file type (.jpg, .pdf, etc) and date range, as well as searching for similar pages, or websites from a particular geographical region.

Google has a help page for Advanced Search

Use Boolean search terms Boolean terms refer to: AND, OR, NOT

These words tell a database how to do the search. "And" combines search terms; "OR" searches for either one search term or another; "NOT" ignores a particular word. (To see a visual representation of Boolean words, go here .)

AND : Google uses an implied "and" between search terms. For example, when you search for maryland constitution what Google does is look for maryland and constitution .

OR : Google will only recognize OR when it is in capital letters. maryland OR virginia

NOT : Google uses the minus sign to exclude terms. maryland -virginia

Restrict the Domain. You can direct Google to look for particularly types of websites, such as government, military, non-profit or education. This is done by indicating what type of site you want, using the "site:" command such as:

shays' rebellion site:.edu

Use Quotes To find words in a web page or document in the exact same order, put quotes around them:

"Song of Solomon"

Exclude non-necessary words Use only those keywords that describe your topic:

How did Frederick Douglass affect the Civil War? should be Frederick Douglass Civil War or "Frederick Douglass" "Civil War"

Search synonyms You can search for the synonyms of words by putting a tilde in front of the search term:

~love would search for "marriage," "romantic," "romance," as well as "love."

Search singular and plural Google does not automatically search for the plural form of words. To makes sure it does you have to use the Boolean OR:

sculpture OR sculptures

Searching for common words Google ignores common words such as "how," "this," "where," "a." To make sure that Google does a search for a word like this use the + symbol before the word:

+who +are +you

Use the "fill in the blank" feature Google can still look for something even if you can't remember the full name, or don't know a specific date, etc:

roe v * would search for court cases that began with "roe."

More Support

Google also provides information on how to do searches:

Basic Search Help

Advanced Tips

• << Previous: Critiquing Websites

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Creating author profiles: google scholar.

• Google Scholar
• Digital Measures | Watermark
• Name Changes

Why Google Scholar?

Having a Google Scholar profile helps researchers searching in Google Scholar discover all of your works in one place. Because Google Scholar is so commonly used this also helps create a record of your research that is likely to be found by anyone searching for you or your work, including potential co-authors, grant and award committee members, and interested researchers.

A Google Scholar profile:

• Creates an easily discoverable profile of your research
• Can help you track citations of your work

How to create and update your Google Scholar profile - text

1. If you do not have a Gmail account, you will need to create one in order to have a Google Scholar profile.

2. Go to scholar.google.com [opens in new tab]

3. Log into your Gmail account

4. Click on the My Profile icon in the upper left.

5. Fill out the intake info.

• Full name – use the name you publish under. This can be changed later.
• Affiliation –  include your job title, department, and university
• Email for verification – use your UCCS email. This helps Google Scholar verify that you are affiliated where you say you are.
• Areas of interest – list keywords that someone might use to find your research
• Homepage – link either your webpage from UCCS, or a personal professional website if you have one. If you don’t have either of these, don’t worry, that’s fine.

6. Find your work

• Google Scholar lets you add works to your profile by groups (sets of articles they identify as being from the same author) or by individual articles. Adding by groups can allow you to add works faster, but you may accidentally add some works that aren’t yours. (Don’t worry you can remove those later.)
• Adding by Articles means you can review every individual work of yours that Google Scholar finds. Depending on how many publications you have this can be arduous, but it also allows you to make sure every work added is really yours.
• If Google Scholar is unable to find certain works of yours, don’t worry. You can add works manually once your basic profile is set up.

7. Choose your profiles settings

• Article Updates – When Google Scholar finds a work that they think is yours, do you want it added automatically to your profile? Or would you like them to email you and give you a chance to approve the item?
• Profile Visibility – Do you want your profile to be findable in Google and Google Scholar. As the goal behind setting up these profiles is usually visibility, the answer is likely yes.
• Follow by Email – This allows you to customize what Google contacts you about. You can choose to learn about new articles that Google Scholar’s algorithm thinks you’ll be interested in based on your work. Or you can choose to be notified of any citations of your work. Or both, or neither.

8. Edit what works appear on your profile.

• Go through the works you’ve added. If any aren’t yours, select them and delete them from your profile.

9. Edit any works that aren’t appearing correctly.

• Sometimes the metadata on an item is incorrect. You can fix this.
• Click on the item with the error. In this example, the publisher got Charles Dickens’s name backwards. He’s showing up as D. Charles and his name is listed as Dickens Charles.

• Click on Edit. Then make the necessary changes, whether that’s fixing the title, indicating the correct item type, changing names, publication dates, etc.

• “Keep this article as it is now” allows you to edit how this item appears in your profile, but the item itself stays linked to the same place on the web. Also, note that an edit doesn’t fix errors on the item itself or the metadata within Google Scholar. If for instance an article has the wrong name for you, you can change how it appears in this profile, but would need to contact the publisher to get the name changed on the article. Learn more about name changes and your scholarly record here.
• “Remove this article” simply removes the item from your profile entirely
• “Unmerge this article” creates a new record with the edited information, but the original record still appears on your profile as well.

10. Add items that Google Scholar didn’t find by either searching for them specifically, or adding them manually.

• Using the add button (which looks like a plus sign in a box), add items by article groups, add articles, or add article manually.
• Add article groups is similar to when you were setting the profile up. Google Scholar automatically generates groups of articles they think are by the same author. This way you can add many items at once, but you may add something that wasn’t yours and will need to delete it.
• Add articles lets you review individual items Google Scholar has matched with your name, or use the search box to search for a specific item name if you’re not seeing it.
• If Google Scholar can’t find your work, you can also add it manually, selecting an item type and filling out the required fields.

11. Occasionally check your profile and add any items you need to keep it up to date.

• << Previous: Home
• Next: ORCID >>
• Last Updated: May 16, 2024 10:28 AM
• URL: https://libguides.uccs.edu/author-profiles

Need Research Assistance? Get Help

Library Guides

Citation: Research Management Tools

• EndNote This link opens in a new window
• Citing using Google Scholar
• Citing using Databases
• Citing using Library Search
• Citation: How to Cite Your Sources
• Image Management
• Workshops & Appointments
• Politics of Citation

If you use Google Scholar, you can get citations for articles in the search result list. Copy and paste a formatted citation (APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, or Vancouver) or use one of the links to import into your bibliography management tool.

• Click on the Cite link next to your item.
• Select your citation style.
• Paste the citation into your working document.
• Double check and adjust formatting as needed to match your selected citation style.
• Google Scholar This link opens in a new window Search results often include "Cited by ##" links below the citation, which leads you to other articles available to Google's robots. Full text may not be available via Google, but the library probably has it in a subscription database or print copy for you.

• << Previous: Zotero
• Next: Citing using Databases >>
• Last Updated: May 29, 2024 4:03 PM
• URL: https://libguides.tulane.edu/citation_tools

10 Ways On How To Find Sources For A Research Paper

Declan Gessel

May 27, 2024

If you are struggling to find credible sources for your research paper, you are in the right place. Utilizing academic sources gives your paper credibility and makes your arguments more compelling. This guide will teach you to gather academic sources to elevate your research paper. The importance of academic sources cannot be stressed enough. By utilizing academic sources, you add value to your work. 

Including academic sources in your research paper makes your argument more compelling and credible. Focusing on academic resources elevates your work and resonates with your readers. In the digital age, finding sources has never been easier. By leveraging technology, you can access an array of academic resources. Although finding sources may seem daunting, you can discover academic resources quickly and efficiently. 

In this guide, we detail various strategies for finding academic resources. As you gather resources, assessing each source's credibility is crucial. In the digital age, anyone can publish information, regardless of its validity. By utilizing the CRAAP Test , you can evaluate the credibility of your sources. This tool assesses a source's currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose. 

By determining these factors, you can ensure that your sources are trustworthy and reliable. Each source you use in your research paper should pass the CRAAP Test. By utilizing this tool, you enhance the credibility of your work and make your arguments more compelling. By following the strategies outlined in this guide, you can easily gather academic sources for your research paper.

Table of Contents

What are credible research sources, characteristics of a reliable source, how to evaluate source credibility, write smarter with jotbot — start writing for free today.

Credible sources are essential for providing accurate, reliable, and verifiable information in research papers. When I say "credible sources," I mean sources authored by experts and published in reputable journals, books, or websites. The integrity and reliability of your research depend on these sources. Credible sources ensure your research findings' accuracy and provide detailed and reliable information. Strengthening the foundation of your argument is critical. It supports and validates your claims. Using respected sources enhances the authority and legitimacy of your work. Credible sources prevent the dissemination of false or misleading information. They also improve the overall quality and credibility of your paper. These sources contribute to the scholarly quality and trustworthiness of your research. 

Related Reading

• how to know if an article is peer reviewed • semantic scholar • what are scholarly sources • credible sources for research • how to use google scholar • craap method • evaluating sources • 10 examples of reliable sources • academic search engines

When I evaluate a source's credibility, accuracy is critical. I always check to see if the information presented can be verified. I look for sources that cite their sources and avoid making misleading claims. The best sources have been fact-checked and reviewed by editors.

Objectivity

I make sure the source remains objective and neutral in its presentation of information. I avoid sources with a clear agenda or relying on emotional manipulation rather than facts. A trustworthy source should present information unbiasedly and provide substantial evidence to back up its claims.

Before considering a source credible, I check the author or publisher's credibility. I look for recognized experts or authorities in the field, as scholarly articles are typically written by researchers or academics with relevant qualifications. I also check for credentials, and affiliations with reputable institutions, or established publishers.

Finally, I ensure the information is up-to-date and relevant to the topic at hand. I always check the source's publication date to ensure it aligns with current knowledge or research in the field. Keeping up with the most current and relevant information helps to ensure the quality and credibility of the source.

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• Best Databases for Research • How to Find Peer Reviewed Articles on Google Scholar • ChatPDF Alternative • Best Databases for Research • Scholarly vs Popular Sources • Google Scholar Alternative • Best AI for Writing Research Papers • Peer-Reviewed Sources • How to Find Research Papers • Best Websites for Research Papers Free • Databases Like JSTOR • AI That Cites Sources • How to Tell if a Source Is Scholarly

1. Dive Deep into Scholarly Articles and Journals

Academic Databases offer a plethora of resources that allow you to research numerous topics from a scholarly perspective. I suggest databases such as JSTOR, ScienceDirect, and EBSCOhost, which provide up-to-date and well-vetted information.

2. Utilize the Wealth of Your University Library

The university library is a hidden gem, offering resources that may not be available elsewhere. The library has academic journals, e-books, and print materials that are invaluable for research. Don't forget to ask the librarian for help!

3. Government Websites: A Treasure Trove of Information

Government websites (those that end in .gov) are rich in trustworthy data, reports, and statistics. They offer a broad spectrum of topics, from health to environmental science.

4. Sink Your Teeth Into Educational Websites

Educational websites ending in .edu are another great resource. These sites often contain research findings from universities and institutions, providing a solid foundation for your research.

5. Turn to Established News Outlets

Reputable news organizations are perfect for acquiring information on current events and analysis. Hunt for websites that differentiate between news and opinion, with a strong emphasis on fact-checking and integrity.

6. Delve into Peer-Reviewed Journals

Information from peer-reviewed journals is backed by experts in the field, guaranteeing credibility and supporting evidence. This makes it an excellent source of research material.

7. Explore Books by Credible Authors

You should include books by reliable authors published by university presses or reputable publishing houses on your list. The author's expertise and credentials significantly improve the validity of the information.

8. Reports from Reputable Organizations

Organizations such as research institutes think tanks, and NGOs can provide a wealth of information on various topics. Search for organizations renowned for their credibility and transparent funding sources.

9. Trustworthy Documentary Films

While not the conventional source, documentary films can provide unique insights and perspectives on social and historical issues. Ensure that the documentaries have a solid factual basis and have minimal bias.

10. Published Interviews with Experts

Interviews with professionals in relevant fields can offer firsthand accounts and valuable insights. Look for interviews conducted by reputable journalists or published by credible sources to enhance the credibility of your research.

Author Expertise 

When evaluating a source, the first thing I look at is who wrote it. I want to see if the author is a professor in the field, a researcher with relevant experience, or someone with no credentials. An author with credentials from reputable institutions or organizations is likelier to publish accurate and reliable information.

Currency of Information

The next thing I consider is the currency of information. I look to see if the information is fresh and relevant to my research needs. I understand that the publication date is crucial and should align with my research requirements. For some fields, like fast-moving scientific fields, recent publications are essential, while for others, historical accuracy might be more important.

Objectivity and Bias

Then, I check for objectivity and bias in the source. A credible source should present a balanced, unbiased view, acknowledging opposing viewpoints and avoiding sensationalized language. I am wary of sources with a clear agenda or those heavily promoting a particular perspective.

Evidence and Citations 

Lastly, I consider the evidence and citations provided by the source. I look for supporting evidence that backs up the claims made. Sources that cite reputable publications and include references to credible sources demonstrate stronger credibility.

When it comes to writing research papers, finding credible sources can be a challenging task. Jotbot is an artificial intelligence-powered document assistant that can help you with this aspect of your paper. Jotbot takes note-taking to the next level by providing AI summaries of videos and analyzing texts to produce outlines. 

It can even help you find citations and sources for your research, streamlining your writing process and making it more efficient. By leveraging Jotbot’s AI capabilities , you can write better, write faster, and write smarter. Start writing with Jotbot today by signing in with Google and experiencing a new level of writing efficiency.

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Exploring the Importance of Google Scholar Citations for Researchers

What Are Google Scholar Citations?

Google Scholar Citations are one way to gauge a research paper’s influence. They are determined by tracking how frequently a particular paper is cited in other academic works.

Citations are distinct from references in that the former are the sources acknowledged inside a publication, while the latter is how other writers acknowledge a work.

What Are the Benefits of Google Scholar Citations?

Tracking research effect and influence, finding pertinent research and collaborators, building academic reputation and credibility, and influencing funding and tenure decisions are just a few advantages of using Google Scholar citations.

Google Scholar indexes full-text journal articles , technical reports, preprints, theses, books, and other publications and lets users search for digital or hard versions of articles online or in libraries.

Why Are Google Scholar Citations Important for Researchers?

Researchers should value Google Scholar citations because they can gauge their work’s effect and influence, find relevant studies and collaborators, build academic credibility, and influence choices about financing and tenure.

Maintaining a record of citations aids scholars in staying current, participating in the broader academic discourse, and locating possible partners.

How Do You Boost Your Google Scholar Citations?

Make your study more visible and accessible if you want to increase the number of citations it receives from Google Scholar. Ensure Google Scholar correctly indexes your papers by setting up a profile and confirming your authorship.

To reach a wider audience, collaborate with other scholars, present at conferences, and post your work on academic networks. Ensure your articles are optimized with pertinent keywords, and consider publishing them in an open-access manner to boost your chances of being mentioned.

How Do I Maximize Google Scholar?

Google Scholar citations and maximize your impact by creating a thorough and current profile, confirming your authorship and ensuring your citation counts are correct. Add co-authors and claim and merge duplicate profiles to improve the visibility of your collaboration.

Update your publication list frequently and use keywords and abstracts to improve discoverability. Use Google Scholar’s citation monitoring and alerts to keep tabs on relevant research and track the influence of your work .

To sum up, Google Scholar citations are an essential indicator for academics that show the reputation, impact, and influence of their work. Citations are necessary, but so are careful use and interpretation.

Scholars should prioritize quality over quantity, consider the context of citations, and refrain from manipulation. You can use citations to promote academic integrity and quality by doing this.

https://unimelb.libguides.com/researcher_profiles/googlescholar#:~:text=Considerations%20and%20Risks-,What%20is%20Google%20Scholar%20Citations%3F,automatically%20or%20update%20them%20yourself. https://libguides.tulane.edu/citation_tools/google_scholar

Header Title image: Exploring the Importance of Google Scholar Citations for Researchers

Image briefing: 1. Background Image:

• A clean and modern academic setting, such as a well-organized study desk with a laptop open to Google Scholar, stacks of research papers , and a few open books.
• Alternatively, a visual representation of a researcher’s digital workspace with charts and graphs depicting citation metrics.
• Main Visual Elements:
• A prominent Google Scholar logo, either in the center or subtly integrated into the background.
• Icons or graphics representing various aspects of citations, such as upward-trending graphs, citation marks (quotation marks) , or a cluster of books and academic journals.
• Title Text:
• Place the title “Exploring the Importance of Google Scholar Citations for Researchers” prominently across the top or center of the image.
• Use a professional and modern font, with a color that contrasts well with the background for readability (e.g., white text on a dark background or vice versa).
• Supporting Text:
• Include a brief tagline or subtitle under the main title, such as “Enhance your academic impact and visibility with effective citation management.”
• Use a slightly smaller font size for the supporting text to distinguish it from the main title.
• Visual Cues:
• Incorporate subtle arrows or lines pointing to different elements within the image, guiding the viewer’s eye from the title to key aspects like the Google Scholar logo and citation metrics.
• Use icons representing citation metrics, such as a citation graph or a list of citations, to visually emphasize the topic.
• Color Scheme:
• Use a color palette that aligns with academic and professional themes, such as blues, grays, and whites, ensuring a clean and trustworthy look.
• Ensure the colors used for text and icons stand out against the background for maximum readability.
• Branding Elements:
• Include a small, unobtrusive ManuscriptEdit logo or watermark in one of the corners to subtly brand the image without distracting from the main content.
• Ensure the branding aligns with the overall aesthetic and color scheme of the image.
• Call-to-Action (Optional):
• If space allows, add a small call-to-action at the bottom of the image, such as “Learn more in our latest blog post!” with an arrow or icon indicating further engagement.

Image References:

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https://libapps-ca.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/142800/images/Google_Scholar_Profile.png

!Google Scholar Infographic reference image: https://img.freepik.com/premium-vector/risk-management-infographic_23-2148607942.jpg?w=826

• Familiar Interface : Google Scholar’s simple and intuitive design makes it easy to use, similar to regular Google searches.
• Diverse Materials : It allows users to find a wide variety of scholarly materials, including articles, theses, books, and conference proceedings.
• Related Articles and Citations : Google Scholar provides related articles, citation counts, and information on who cited a particular article.
• Library Links : It can display links to articles and books available through university libraries.
• Save Feature : Users can save citations and articles for later reading.

Remember that Google Scholar is a powerful tool for researchers, offering both simplicity and depth in accessing scholarly literature 1 2

1scholar.google.com 2scholar.google.com 3drupal.org 4scholar.google.com.ec

Exploring the Importance of Google Scholar Citations for Researchers Google Scholar Citations play a crucial role in the research community, providing a valuable platform for researchers to showcase their work and enhance their visibility. By accurately tracking citations, Google Scholar helps researchers measure the impact and reach of their publications, enabling them to establish their credibility and influence in their respective fields. Moreover, Google Scholar Citations also facilitate collaborations and networking opportunities among researchers with similar research interests, fostering a dynamic and interconnected scholarly community. Don’t miss out on the benefits that Google Scholar Citations can offer to elevate your research profile.

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Home › Study Tips › Research Skills: What They Are and How They Benefit You

Research Skills: What They Are and How They Benefit You

• Published May 23, 2024

Table of Contents

Research skills give you the ability to gather relevant information from different sources and analyse it critically in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of a subject. Thus, research skills are fundamental to academic success.

Developing these skills will improve your studies, helping you understand subjects better and positioning you for academic success.

That said, how can you develop important research skills? This will explore what research skills are, identify the core ones, and explain how you can develop them.

What Are Research Skills?

Research skills are a set of abilities that allow individuals to find and gather reliable information and then evaluate the information to find answers to questions.

Good research skills are important in academic settings, as finding and critically evaluating relevant information can help you gain a deeper understanding of a subject.

These skills are also important in professional and personal settings. When you graduate and are working in a professional capacity, you’ll often need to analyse sets of data to identify issues and determine how to solve them.

In personal contexts, you’ll always need to assess relevant information to make an informed decision. Whether you’re deciding on a major purchase, choosing a healthcare provider, or planning to make an investment, you’ll need to evaluate options to ensure better decision outcomes.

Different Types of Research Skills

Research skills are categorised into different sub-skills. The most common types are:

Quantitative Skills

Quantitative skills refer to the ability to work with numerical data and perform mathematical and statistical analyses to extract meaningful insights and draw conclusions. 

When you have quantitative skills, you’ll be able to apply mathematical concepts and operations in research design and data analysis. 

You’ll also be proficient in using statistical methods to analyse data and interpreting numerical data to draw meaningful conclusions. 

Analytical Skills

Analytical skills refer to the ability to gather data, evaluate it, and draw sound conclusions. When you have analytical skills, you’ll be able to systematically analyse information to reach a reasonable conclusion. 

Analytical skills are important in problem-solving. They help you to break down complex problems into more manageable components, think critically about the information at hand, analyse root causes, and develop effective solutions.

Qualitative Skills

Qualitative skills refer to the ability to collect, analyse, and interpret non-numerical data. When you have qualitative skills, you’ll be proficient in observation, interviewing, and other methods for collecting qualitative research data. 

You’ll also be able to analyse non-numerical data, such as documents and images, to identify themes, patterns, and meanings.

Research Skills Examples

The core research skills you need for success in academic, professional, and personal contexts include:

Data Collection

Data is at the centre of every research, as data is what you assess to find the answers you seek. Thus, research starts with collecting relevant data.

Depending on the research, there are two broad categories of data you can collect: primary and secondary.

Primary data is generated by the researcher, like data from interviews, observations, or experiments. Secondary data is pre-existing data obtained from different existing databases, like published literature, government reports, etc. 

Thus, data collection is more than gathering information from the Internet. Depending on the research, it can require more advanced skills for conducting experiments to generate your own data.

Source Evaluation

When doing research on any subject (especially when using the Internet), you’ll be amazed at the volume of information you’ll find. And a lot is pure garbage that can compromise your research work.

Thus, an important research skill is being able to dig through the garbage to get to the real facts. This is where source evaluation comes in!

Good research skills call for being able to identify biases, assess the authority of the author, and determine the accuracy of information before using it.

Time Management Skills

Have you ever felt that there is not enough time in a day for all that you need to do? When you already have so much to do, adding research can be overwhelming.

Good time management skills can help you find the time to do all you need to do, including relevant research work, making it an essential research skill.

Time management allows you to plan and manage your research project effectively. It includes breaking down research tasks into more manageable parts, setting priorities, and allocating time to the different stages of the research.

Communication Skills

Communication is an important aspect of every research, as it aids in data collection and sharing research findings. 

Important communication skills needed in research include active listening, active speaking, interviewing, report writing, data visualisation, and presentation, etc.

For example, when research involves collecting primary data via interviews, you must have sound speaking and listening skills. 

When you conclude the research and need to share findings, you’ll need to write a research report and present key findings in easy-to-understand formats like charts. 

Attention to Detail

Attention to detail is the ability to achieve thoroughness and accuracy when doing something. It requires focusing on every aspect of the tasks, even small ones. 

Anything you miss during your research will affect the quality of your research findings. Thus, the ability to pay close attention to details is an important research skill.

You need attention to detail at every stage of the research process. During data collection, it helps you ensure reliable data. 

During analysis, it reduces the risk of error to ensure your results are trustworthy. It also helps you express findings precisely to minimise ambiguity and facilitate understanding.

Note-Taking

Note-taking is exactly what it sounds like—writing down key information during the research process.

Remember that research involves sifting through and taking in a lot of information. It’s impossible to take in all the information and recall it from memory. This is where note-taking comes in!

Note-taking helps you capture key information, making it easier to remember and utilise for the research later. It also involves writing down where to look for important information.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the ability to think rationally and synthesise information in a thoughtful way. It is an important skill needed in virtually all stages of the research process.

For example, when collecting data, you need critical thinking to assess the quality and relevance of data. It can help you identify gaps in data to formulate your research question and hypothesis. 

It can also help you to identify patterns and make reasonable connections when interpreting research findings.

Data Analysis

Data may not mean anything until you analyse it qualitatively or quantitatively (using techniques like Excel or SPSS). For this reason, data analysis analysis is an important research skill.

Researchers need to be able to build hypotheses and test these using appropriate research techniques. This helps to draw meaningful conclusions and gain a comprehensive understanding of research data.

Problem-Solving Skills

Research often involves addressing specific questions and solving problems. For this reason, problem-solving skills are important skills when conducting research. 

Problem-solving skills refer to the ability to identify, analyse, and solve problems effectively. 

With problem-solving skills, you’ll be able to assess a situation, consider various solutions, and choose the most appropriate course of action toward finding a solution.

Benefits of Research Skills

Research skills have many benefits, including:

Enhances Critical Thinking

Research skills and critical thinking are intertwined such that developing one enhances the other.

Research requires people to question assumptions, evaluate evidence, analyse information, and draw conclusions. These activities require you to think critically about the information at hand. Hence, engaging in research enhances critical thinking.

Develops Problem-Solving Skills

Research helps you acquire a set of critical skills that are directly transferable to problem-solving. 

For example, research fosters creative thinking, as it often requires synthesising data from different sources and connecting different concepts. After developing creative thinking via research, you can apply the skill to generate innovative solutions in problem-solving situations. 

Helps in Knowledge Acquisition

Engaging in research is a powerful way to acquire knowledge. Research involves exploring new ideas, and this helps you expand your breadth of knowledge.

It also involves applying research methods and methodologies. So, you’ll acquire knowledge about research methods, enhancing your ability to design and conduct studies in your higher education or professional life.

Why Are Research Skills Important?

Strong research skills offer numerous benefits, especially for students’ academic learning and development. 

When you develop good research skills, you’ll reap great academic rewards that include:

In-Depth Understanding

Conducting research allows you to delve deep into specific topics, helping you gain a thorough understanding of the subject matter beyond what is covered in standard coursework.

Critical Thinking Development

Research involves critical evaluation of information and making informed decisions. This builds your ability to think critically.

This skill will not only help you solve academic problems better, but it’s also crucial to your personal and professional growth.

Encouragement of Independent Learning

Research encourages independent learning. When you engage in research, you seek answers independently. You take the initiative to find, retrieve, and evaluate information relevant to your research.

That helps you develop self-directed study habits. You’ll be able to take ownership of your education and actively seek out information for a better understanding of the subject matter.

Intellectual Curiosity Development

Research skills encourage intellectual curiosity and a love of learning, as they’ll make you explore topics you find intriguing or important. Thus, you’ll be more motivated to explore topics beyond the scope of your coursework.

Enhanced Communication Skills

Research helps you build better interpersonal skills as well as report-writing skills.

Research helps you sharpen your communication skills when you interact with research subjects during data collection. Communicating research findings to an audience also helps sharpen your presentation skills or report writing skills.

Assistance in Career Preparation 

Many professions find people with good research skills. Whether you’ll pursue a career in academia, business, healthcare, or IT, being able to conduct research will make you a valuable asset.

So, researching skills for students prepares you for a successful career when you graduate.

Contribution to Personal Growth

Research also contributes to your personal growth. Know that research projects often come with setbacks, unexpected challenges, and moments of uncertainty. Navigating these difficulties helps you build resilience and confidence.

Acquisition of Time Management Skills

Research projects often come with deadlines. Such research projects force you to set goals, prioritise tasks, and manage your time effectively.

That helps you acquire important time management skills that you can use in other areas of academic life and your professional life when you graduate.

Ways to Improve Research Skills

The ways to improve your research skills involve a combination of learning and practice. 

You should consider enrolling in research-related programmes, learning to use data analysis tools, practising summarising and synthesising information from multiple sources, collaborating with more experienced researchers, and more. 

Looking to improve your research skills? Read our 11 ways to improve research skills article.

How Can I Learn Research Skills?

You can learn research skills using these simple three-point framework:

Clarifying the Objective

Start by articulating the purpose of your research. Identify the specific question you are trying to answer or the problem you are aiming to solve.

Then, determine the scope of your research to help you stay focused and avoid going after irrelevant information.

Cross-Referencing Sources

The next step is to search for existing research on the topic. Use academic databases, journals, books, and reputable online sources.

It’s important to compare information from multiple sources, taking note of consensus among studies and any conflicting findings. 

Also, check the credibility of each source by looking at the author’s expertise, information recency, and reputation of the publication’s outlet.

Organise the Research

Develop a note-taking system to document key findings as you search for existing research. Create a research outline, then arrange your ideas logically, ensuring that each section aligns with your research objective.

As you progress, be adaptable. Be open to refining your research plan as new understanding evolves.

Enrolling in online research programmes can also help you build strong research skills. These programmes combine subject study with academic research project development to help you hone the skills you need to succeed in higher education.

Immerse Education is a foremost provider of online research programmes.

Acquire Research Skills with Immerse Education 

Research skills are essential to academic success. They help you gain an in-depth understanding of subjects, enhance your critical thinking and problem-solving skills, improve your time management skills, and more. 

In addition to boosting you academically, they contribute to your personal growth and prepare you for a successful professional career.

Thankfully, you can learn research skills and reap these benefits. There are different ways to improve research skills, including enrolling in research-based programmes. This is why you need Immerse Education!

Immerse Education provides participants aged 13-18 with unparalleled educational experience. All our programmes are designed by tutors from top global universities and help prepare participants for future success.

Our online research programme expertly combines subject study with academic research projects to help you gain subject matter knowledge and the important research skills you need to succeed in higher education.  With one-on-one tutoring or group sessions from an expert academic from Oxford or Cambridge University and a flexible delivery mode, the programme is designed for you to succeed. Subsequently, enrolling in our accredited Online Research Programme will award students with 8 UCAS points upon completion.

Related Content

11 tips to improve your research skills for academic success.

• USC Libraries
• Research Guides

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

Glossary of research terms.

• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Reading Research Effectively
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Applying Critical Thinking
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Research Process Video Series
• Executive Summary
• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tiertiary Sources
• Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Insiderness
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Writing Concisely
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Generative AI and Writing
• USC Libraries Tutorials and Other Guides
• Bibliography

This glossary is intended to assist you in understanding commonly used terms and concepts when reading, interpreting, and evaluating scholarly research. Also included are common words and phrases defined within the context of how they apply to research in the social and behavioral sciences.

• Acculturation -- refers to the process of adapting to another culture, particularly in reference to blending in with the majority population [e.g., an immigrant adopting American customs]. However, acculturation also implies that both cultures add something to one another, but still remain distinct groups unto themselves.
• Accuracy -- a term used in survey research to refer to the match between the target population and the sample.
• Affective Measures -- procedures or devices used to obtain quantified descriptions of an individual's feelings, emotional states, or dispositions.
• Aggregate -- a total created from smaller units. For instance, the population of a county is an aggregate of the populations of the cities, rural areas, etc. that comprise the county. As a verb, it refers to total data from smaller units into a large unit.
• Anonymity -- a research condition in which no one, including the researcher, knows the identities of research participants.
• Baseline -- a control measurement carried out before an experimental treatment.
• Behaviorism -- school of psychological thought concerned with the observable, tangible, objective facts of behavior, rather than with subjective phenomena such as thoughts, emotions, or impulses. Contemporary behaviorism also emphasizes the study of mental states such as feelings and fantasies to the extent that they can be directly observed and measured.
• Beliefs -- ideas, doctrines, tenets, etc. that are accepted as true on grounds which are not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof.
• Benchmarking -- systematically measuring and comparing the operations and outcomes of organizations, systems, processes, etc., against agreed upon "best-in-class" frames of reference.
• Bias -- a loss of balance and accuracy in the use of research methods. It can appear in research via the sampling frame, random sampling, or non-response. It can also occur at other stages in research, such as while interviewing, in the design of questions, or in the way data are analyzed and presented. Bias means that the research findings will not be representative of, or generalizable to, a wider population.
• Case Study -- the collection and presentation of detailed information about a particular participant or small group, frequently including data derived from the subjects themselves.
• Causal Hypothesis -- a statement hypothesizing that the independent variable affects the dependent variable in some way.
• Causal Relationship -- the relationship established that shows that an independent variable, and nothing else, causes a change in a dependent variable. It also establishes how much of a change is shown in the dependent variable.
• Causality -- the relation between cause and effect.
• Central Tendency -- any way of describing or characterizing typical, average, or common values in some distribution.
• Chi-square Analysis -- a common non-parametric statistical test which compares an expected proportion or ratio to an actual proportion or ratio.
• Claim -- a statement, similar to a hypothesis, which is made in response to the research question and that is affirmed with evidence based on research.
• Classification -- ordering of related phenomena into categories, groups, or systems according to characteristics or attributes.
• Cluster Analysis -- a method of statistical analysis where data that share a common trait are grouped together. The data is collected in a way that allows the data collector to group data according to certain characteristics.
• Cohort Analysis -- group by group analytic treatment of individuals having a statistical factor in common to each group. Group members share a particular characteristic [e.g., born in a given year] or a common experience [e.g., entering a college at a given time].
• Confidentiality -- a research condition in which no one except the researcher(s) knows the identities of the participants in a study. It refers to the treatment of information that a participant has disclosed to the researcher in a relationship of trust and with the expectation that it will not be revealed to others in ways that violate the original consent agreement, unless permission is granted by the participant.
• Confirmability Objectivity -- the findings of the study could be confirmed by another person conducting the same study.
• Construct -- refers to any of the following: something that exists theoretically but is not directly observable; a concept developed [constructed] for describing relations among phenomena or for other research purposes; or, a theoretical definition in which concepts are defined in terms of other concepts. For example, intelligence cannot be directly observed or measured; it is a construct.
• Construct Validity -- seeks an agreement between a theoretical concept and a specific measuring device, such as observation.
• Constructivism -- the idea that reality is socially constructed. It is the view that reality cannot be understood outside of the way humans interact and that the idea that knowledge is constructed, not discovered. Constructivists believe that learning is more active and self-directed than either behaviorism or cognitive theory would postulate.
• Content Analysis -- the systematic, objective, and quantitative description of the manifest or latent content of print or nonprint communications.
• Context Sensitivity -- awareness by a qualitative researcher of factors such as values and beliefs that influence cultural behaviors.
• Control Group -- the group in an experimental design that receives either no treatment or a different treatment from the experimental group. This group can thus be compared to the experimental group.
• Controlled Experiment -- an experimental design with two or more randomly selected groups [an experimental group and control group] in which the researcher controls or introduces the independent variable and measures the dependent variable at least two times [pre- and post-test measurements].
• Correlation -- a common statistical analysis, usually abbreviated as r, that measures the degree of relationship between pairs of interval variables in a sample. The range of correlation is from -1.00 to zero to +1.00. Also, a non-cause and effect relationship between two variables.
• Covariate -- a product of the correlation of two related variables times their standard deviations. Used in true experiments to measure the difference of treatment between them.
• Credibility -- a researcher's ability to demonstrate that the object of a study is accurately identified and described based on the way in which the study was conducted.
• Critical Theory -- an evaluative approach to social science research, associated with Germany's neo-Marxist “Frankfurt School,” that aims to criticize as well as analyze society, opposing the political orthodoxy of modern communism. Its goal is to promote human emancipatory forces and to expose ideas and systems that impede them.
• Data -- factual information [as measurements or statistics] used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation.
• Data Mining -- the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information, often to discover patterns and/or systematic relationships among variables.
• Data Quality -- this is the degree to which the collected data [results of measurement or observation] meet the standards of quality to be considered valid [trustworthy] and  reliable [dependable].
• Deductive -- a form of reasoning in which conclusions are formulated about particulars from general or universal premises.
• Dependability -- being able to account for changes in the design of the study and the changing conditions surrounding what was studied.
• Dependent Variable -- a variable that varies due, at least in part, to the impact of the independent variable. In other words, its value “depends” on the value of the independent variable. For example, in the variables “gender” and “academic major,” academic major is the dependent variable, meaning that your major cannot determine whether you are male or female, but your gender might indirectly lead you to favor one major over another.
• Deviation -- the distance between the mean and a particular data point in a given distribution.
• Discourse Community -- a community of scholars and researchers in a given field who respond to and communicate to each other through published articles in the community's journals and presentations at conventions. All members of the discourse community adhere to certain conventions for the presentation of their theories and research.
• Discrete Variable -- a variable that is measured solely in whole units, such as, gender and number of siblings.
• Distribution -- the range of values of a particular variable.
• Effect Size -- the amount of change in a dependent variable that can be attributed to manipulations of the independent variable. A large effect size exists when the value of the dependent variable is strongly influenced by the independent variable. It is the mean difference on a variable between experimental and control groups divided by the standard deviation on that variable of the pooled groups or of the control group alone.
• Emancipatory Research -- research is conducted on and with people from marginalized groups or communities. It is led by a researcher or research team who is either an indigenous or external insider; is interpreted within intellectual frameworks of that group; and, is conducted largely for the purpose of empowering members of that community and improving services for them. It also engages members of the community as co-constructors or validators of knowledge.
• Empirical Research -- the process of developing systematized knowledge gained from observations that are formulated to support insights and generalizations about the phenomena being researched.
• Epistemology -- concerns knowledge construction; asks what constitutes knowledge and how knowledge is validated.
• Ethnography -- method to study groups and/or cultures over a period of time. The goal of this type of research is to comprehend the particular group/culture through immersion into the culture or group. Research is completed through various methods but, since the researcher is immersed within the group for an extended period of time, more detailed information is usually collected during the research.
• Expectancy Effect -- any unconscious or conscious cues that convey to the participant in a study how the researcher wants them to respond. Expecting someone to behave in a particular way has been shown to promote the expected behavior. Expectancy effects can be minimized by using standardized interactions with subjects, automated data-gathering methods, and double blind protocols.
• External Validity -- the extent to which the results of a study are generalizable or transferable.
• Factor Analysis -- a statistical test that explores relationships among data. The test explores which variables in a data set are most related to each other. In a carefully constructed survey, for example, factor analysis can yield information on patterns of responses, not simply data on a single response. Larger tendencies may then be interpreted, indicating behavior trends rather than simply responses to specific questions.
• Field Studies -- academic or other investigative studies undertaken in a natural setting, rather than in laboratories, classrooms, or other structured environments.
• Focus Groups -- small, roundtable discussion groups charged with examining specific topics or problems, including possible options or solutions. Focus groups usually consist of 4-12 participants, guided by moderators to keep the discussion flowing and to collect and report the results.
• Framework -- the structure and support that may be used as both the launching point and the on-going guidelines for investigating a research problem.
• Generalizability -- the extent to which research findings and conclusions conducted on a specific study to groups or situations can be applied to the population at large.
• Grey Literature -- research produced by organizations outside of commercial and academic publishing that publish materials, such as, working papers, research reports, and briefing papers.
• Grounded Theory -- practice of developing other theories that emerge from observing a group. Theories are grounded in the group's observable experiences, but researchers add their own insight into why those experiences exist.
• Group Behavior -- behaviors of a group as a whole, as well as the behavior of an individual as influenced by his or her membership in a group.
• Hypothesis -- a tentative explanation based on theory to predict a causal relationship between variables.
• Independent Variable -- the conditions of an experiment that are systematically manipulated by the researcher. A variable that is not impacted by the dependent variable, and that itself impacts the dependent variable. In the earlier example of "gender" and "academic major," (see Dependent Variable) gender is the independent variable.
• Individualism -- a theory or policy having primary regard for the liberty, rights, or independent actions of individuals.
• Inductive -- a form of reasoning in which a generalized conclusion is formulated from particular instances.
• Inductive Analysis -- a form of analysis based on inductive reasoning; a researcher using inductive analysis starts with answers, but formulates questions throughout the research process.
• Insiderness -- a concept in qualitative research that refers to the degree to which a researcher has access to and an understanding of persons, places, or things within a group or community based on being a member of that group or community.
• Internal Consistency -- the extent to which all questions or items assess the same characteristic, skill, or quality.
• Internal Validity -- the rigor with which the study was conducted [e.g., the study's design, the care taken to conduct measurements, and decisions concerning what was and was not measured]. It is also the extent to which the designers of a study have taken into account alternative explanations for any causal relationships they explore. In studies that do not explore causal relationships, only the first of these definitions should be considered when assessing internal validity.
• Life History -- a record of an event/events in a respondent's life told [written down, but increasingly audio or video recorded] by the respondent from his/her own perspective in his/her own words. A life history is different from a "research story" in that it covers a longer time span, perhaps a complete life, or a significant period in a life.
• Margin of Error -- the permittable or acceptable deviation from the target or a specific value. The allowance for slight error or miscalculation or changing circumstances in a study.
• Measurement -- process of obtaining a numerical description of the extent to which persons, organizations, or things possess specified characteristics.
• Meta-Analysis -- an analysis combining the results of several studies that address a set of related hypotheses.
• Methodology -- a theory or analysis of how research does and should proceed.
• Methods -- systematic approaches to the conduct of an operation or process. It includes steps of procedure, application of techniques, systems of reasoning or analysis, and the modes of inquiry employed by a discipline.
• Mixed-Methods -- a research approach that uses two or more methods from both the quantitative and qualitative research categories. It is also referred to as blended methods, combined methods, or methodological triangulation.
• Modeling -- the creation of a physical or computer analogy to understand a particular phenomenon. Modeling helps in estimating the relative magnitude of various factors involved in a phenomenon. A successful model can be shown to account for unexpected behavior that has been observed, to predict certain behaviors, which can then be tested experimentally, and to demonstrate that a given theory cannot account for certain phenomenon.
• Models -- representations of objects, principles, processes, or ideas often used for imitation or emulation.
• Naturalistic Observation -- observation of behaviors and events in natural settings without experimental manipulation or other forms of interference.
• Norm -- the norm in statistics is the average or usual performance. For example, students usually complete their high school graduation requirements when they are 18 years old. Even though some students graduate when they are younger or older, the norm is that any given student will graduate when he or she is 18 years old.
• Null Hypothesis -- the proposition, to be tested statistically, that the experimental intervention has "no effect," meaning that the treatment and control groups will not differ as a result of the intervention. Investigators usually hope that the data will demonstrate some effect from the intervention, thus allowing the investigator to reject the null hypothesis.
• Ontology -- a discipline of philosophy that explores the science of what is, the kinds and structures of objects, properties, events, processes, and relations in every area of reality.
• Panel Study -- a longitudinal study in which a group of individuals is interviewed at intervals over a period of time.
• Participant -- individuals whose physiological and/or behavioral characteristics and responses are the object of study in a research project.
• Peer-Review -- the process in which the author of a book, article, or other type of publication submits his or her work to experts in the field for critical evaluation, usually prior to publication. This is standard procedure in publishing scholarly research.
• Phenomenology -- a qualitative research approach concerned with understanding certain group behaviors from that group's point of view.
• Philosophy -- critical examination of the grounds for fundamental beliefs and analysis of the basic concepts, doctrines, or practices that express such beliefs.
• Phonology -- the study of the ways in which speech sounds form systems and patterns in language.
• Policy -- governing principles that serve as guidelines or rules for decision making and action in a given area.
• Policy Analysis -- systematic study of the nature, rationale, cost, impact, effectiveness, implications, etc., of existing or alternative policies, using the theories and methodologies of relevant social science disciplines.
• Population -- the target group under investigation. The population is the entire set under consideration. Samples are drawn from populations.
• Position Papers -- statements of official or organizational viewpoints, often recommending a particular course of action or response to a situation.
• Positivism -- a doctrine in the philosophy of science, positivism argues that science can only deal with observable entities known directly to experience. The positivist aims to construct general laws, or theories, which express relationships between phenomena. Observation and experiment is used to show whether the phenomena fit the theory.
• Predictive Measurement -- use of tests, inventories, or other measures to determine or estimate future events, conditions, outcomes, or trends.
• Principal Investigator -- the scientist or scholar with primary responsibility for the design and conduct of a research project.
• Probability -- the chance that a phenomenon will occur randomly. As a statistical measure, it is shown as p [the "p" factor].
• Questionnaire -- structured sets of questions on specified subjects that are used to gather information, attitudes, or opinions.
• Random Sampling -- a process used in research to draw a sample of a population strictly by chance, yielding no discernible pattern beyond chance. Random sampling can be accomplished by first numbering the population, then selecting the sample according to a table of random numbers or using a random-number computer generator. The sample is said to be random because there is no regular or discernible pattern or order. Random sample selection is used under the assumption that sufficiently large samples assigned randomly will exhibit a distribution comparable to that of the population from which the sample is drawn. The random assignment of participants increases the probability that differences observed between participant groups are the result of the experimental intervention.
• Reliability -- the degree to which a measure yields consistent results. If the measuring instrument [e.g., survey] is reliable, then administering it to similar groups would yield similar results. Reliability is a prerequisite for validity. An unreliable indicator cannot produce trustworthy results.
• Representative Sample -- sample in which the participants closely match the characteristics of the population, and thus, all segments of the population are represented in the sample. A representative sample allows results to be generalized from the sample to the population.
• Rigor -- degree to which research methods are scrupulously and meticulously carried out in order to recognize important influences occurring in an experimental study.
• Sample -- the population researched in a particular study. Usually, attempts are made to select a "sample population" that is considered representative of groups of people to whom results will be generalized or transferred. In studies that use inferential statistics to analyze results or which are designed to be generalizable, sample size is critical, generally the larger the number in the sample, the higher the likelihood of a representative distribution of the population.
• Sampling Error -- the degree to which the results from the sample deviate from those that would be obtained from the entire population, because of random error in the selection of respondent and the corresponding reduction in reliability.
• Saturation -- a situation in which data analysis begins to reveal repetition and redundancy and when new data tend to confirm existing findings rather than expand upon them.
• Semantics -- the relationship between symbols and meaning in a linguistic system. Also, the cuing system that connects what is written in the text to what is stored in the reader's prior knowledge.
• Social Theories -- theories about the structure, organization, and functioning of human societies.
• Sociolinguistics -- the study of language in society and, more specifically, the study of language varieties, their functions, and their speakers.
• Standard Deviation -- a measure of variation that indicates the typical distance between the scores of a distribution and the mean; it is determined by taking the square root of the average of the squared deviations in a given distribution. It can be used to indicate the proportion of data within certain ranges of scale values when the distribution conforms closely to the normal curve.
• Statistical Analysis -- application of statistical processes and theory to the compilation, presentation, discussion, and interpretation of numerical data.
• Statistical Bias -- characteristics of an experimental or sampling design, or the mathematical treatment of data, that systematically affects the results of a study so as to produce incorrect, unjustified, or inappropriate inferences or conclusions.
• Statistical Significance -- the probability that the difference between the outcomes of the control and experimental group are great enough that it is unlikely due solely to chance. The probability that the null hypothesis can be rejected at a predetermined significance level [0.05 or 0.01].
• Statistical Tests -- researchers use statistical tests to make quantitative decisions about whether a study's data indicate a significant effect from the intervention and allow the researcher to reject the null hypothesis. That is, statistical tests show whether the differences between the outcomes of the control and experimental groups are great enough to be statistically significant. If differences are found to be statistically significant, it means that the probability [likelihood] that these differences occurred solely due to chance is relatively low. Most researchers agree that a significance value of .05 or less [i.e., there is a 95% probability that the differences are real] sufficiently determines significance.
• Subcultures -- ethnic, regional, economic, or social groups exhibiting characteristic patterns of behavior sufficient to distinguish them from the larger society to which they belong.
• Testing -- the act of gathering and processing information about individuals' ability, skill, understanding, or knowledge under controlled conditions.
• Theory -- a general explanation about a specific behavior or set of events that is based on known principles and serves to organize related events in a meaningful way. A theory is not as specific as a hypothesis.
• Treatment -- the stimulus given to a dependent variable.
• Trend Samples -- method of sampling different groups of people at different points in time from the same population.
• Triangulation -- a multi-method or pluralistic approach, using different methods in order to focus on the research topic from different viewpoints and to produce a multi-faceted set of data. Also used to check the validity of findings from any one method.
• Unit of Analysis -- the basic observable entity or phenomenon being analyzed by a study and for which data are collected in the form of variables.
• Validity -- the degree to which a study accurately reflects or assesses the specific concept that the researcher is attempting to measure. A method can be reliable, consistently measuring the same thing, but not valid.
• Variable -- any characteristic or trait that can vary from one person to another [race, gender, academic major] or for one person over time [age, political beliefs].
• Weighted Scores -- scores in which the components are modified by different multipliers to reflect their relative importance.
• White Paper -- an authoritative report that often states the position or philosophy about a social, political, or other subject, or a general explanation of an architecture, framework, or product technology written by a group of researchers. A white paper seeks to contain unbiased information and analysis regarding a business or policy problem that the researchers may be facing.

Elliot, Mark, Fairweather, Ian, Olsen, Wendy Kay, and Pampaka, Maria. A Dictionary of Social Research Methods. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016; Free Social Science Dictionary. Socialsciencedictionary.com [2008]. Glossary. Institutional Review Board. Colorado College; Glossary of Key Terms. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Glossary A-Z. Education.com; Glossary of Research Terms. Research Mindedness Virtual Learning Resource. Centre for Human Servive Technology. University of Southampton; Miller, Robert L. and Brewer, John D. The A-Z of Social Research: A Dictionary of Key Social Science Research Concepts London: SAGE, 2003; Jupp, Victor. The SAGE Dictionary of Social and Cultural Research Methods . London: Sage, 2006.

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Schneier on Security

Supply chain attack against courtroom software.

No word on how this backdoor was installed:

A software maker serving more than 10,000 courtrooms throughout the world hosted an application update containing a hidden backdoor that maintained persistent communication with a malicious website, researchers reported Thursday, in the latest episode of a supply-chain attack. The software, known as the JAVS Viewer 8, is a component of the JAVS Suite 8 , an application package courtrooms use to record, play back, and manage audio and video from proceedings. Its maker, Louisville, Kentucky-based Justice AV Solutions, says its products are used in more than 10,000 courtrooms throughout the US and 11 other countries. The company has been in business for 35 years.

It’s software used by courts; we can imagine all sort of actors who want to backdoor it.

Tags: backdoors , courts , supply chain

Posted on May 30, 2024 at 7:04 AM • 4 Comments

Privacy Implications of Tracking Wireless Access Points

Brian Krebs reports on research into geolocating routers:

Apple and the satellite-based broadband service Starlink each recently took steps to address new research into the potential security and privacy implications of how their services geolocate devices. Researchers from the University of Maryland say they relied on publicly available data from Apple to track the location of billions of devices globally—including non-Apple devices like Starlink systems—and found they could use this data to monitor the destruction of Gaza, as well as the movements and in many cases identities of Russian and Ukrainian troops.

Really fascinating implications to this research.

Research paper: “ Surveilling the Masses with Wi-Fi-Based Positioning Systems :

Abstract: Wi-Fi-based Positioning Systems (WPSes) are used by modern mobile devices to learn their position using nearby Wi-Fi access points as landmarks. In this work, we show that Apple’s WPS can be abused to create a privacy threat on a global scale. We present an attack that allows an unprivileged attacker to amass a worldwide snapshot of Wi-Fi BSSID geolocations in only a matter of days. Our attack makes few assumptions, merely exploiting the fact that there are relatively few dense regions of allocated MAC address space. Applying this technique over the course of a year, we learned the precise locations of over 2 billion BSSIDs around the world. The privacy implications of such massive datasets become more stark when taken longitudinally, allowing the attacker to track devices’ movements. While most Wi-Fi access points do not move for long periods of time, many devices—like compact travel routers—are specifically designed to be mobile. We present several case studies that demonstrate the types of attacks on privacy that Apple’s WPS enables: We track devices moving in and out of war zones (specifically Ukraine and Gaza), the effects of natural disasters (specifically the fires in Maui), and the possibility of targeted individual tracking by proxy—all by remotely geolocating wireless access points. We provide recommendations to WPS operators and Wi-Fi access point manufacturers to enhance the privacy of hundreds of millions of users worldwide. Finally, we detail our efforts at responsibly disclosing this privacy vulnerability, and outline some mitigations that Apple and Wi-Fi access point manufacturers have implemented both independently and as a result of our work.

Tags: academic papers , geolocation , privacy , Wi-Fi

Posted on May 29, 2024 at 7:01 AM • 17 Comments

Lattice-Based Cryptosystems and Quantum Cryptanalysis

Quantum computers are probably coming, though we don’t know when—and when they arrive, they will, most likely, be able to break our standard public-key cryptography algorithms. In anticipation of this possibility, cryptographers have been working on quantum-resistant public-key algorithms. The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has been hosting a competition since 2017, and there already are several proposed standards . Most of these are based on lattice problems.

The mathematics of lattice cryptography revolve around combining sets of vectors—that’s the lattice—in a multi-dimensional space. These lattices are filled with multi-dimensional periodicities. The hard problem that’s used in cryptography is to find the shortest periodicity in a large, random-looking lattice. This can be turned into a public-key cryptosystem in a variety of different ways. Research has been ongoing since 1996, and there has been some really great work since then—including many practical public-key algorithms.

On April 10, Yilei Chen from Tsinghua University in Beijing posted a paper describing a new quantum attack on that shortest-path lattice problem. It’s a very dense mathematical paper—63 pages long—and my guess is that only a few cryptographers are able to understand all of its details. (I was not one of them.) But the conclusion was pretty devastating, breaking essentially all of the lattice-based fully homomorphic encryption schemes and coming significantly closer to attacks against the recently proposed (and NIST-approved) lattice key-exchange and signature schemes.

However, there was a small but critical mistake in the paper, on the bottom of page 37. It was independently discovered by Hongxun Wu from Berkeley and Thomas Vidick from the Weizmann Institute in Israel eight days later. The attack algorithm in its current form doesn’t work.

This was discussed last week at the Cryptographers’ Panel at the RSA Conference. Adi Shamir, the “S” in RSA and a 2002 recipient of ACM’s A.M. Turing award, described the result as psychologically significant because it shows that there is still a lot to be discovered about quantum cryptanalysis of lattice-based algorithms. Craig Gentry—inventor of the first fully homomorphic encryption scheme using lattices—was less impressed, basically saying that a nonworking attack doesn’t change anything.

I tend to agree with Shamir. There have been decades of unsuccessful research into breaking lattice-based systems with classical computers; there has been much less research into quantum cryptanalysis. While Chen’s work doesn’t provide a new security bound, it illustrates that there are significant, unexplored research areas in the construction of efficient quantum attacks on lattice-based cryptosystems. These lattices are periodic structures with some hidden periodicities. Finding a different (one-dimensional) hidden periodicity is exactly what enabled Peter Shor to break the RSA algorithm in polynomial time on a quantum computer. There are certainly more results to be discovered. This is the kind of paper that galvanizes research, and I am excited to see what the next couple of years of research will bring.

To be fair, there are lots of difficulties in making any quantum attack work—even in theory.

Breaking lattice-based cryptography with a quantum computer seems to require orders of magnitude more qubits than breaking RSA, because the key size is much larger and processing it requires more quantum storage. Consequently, testing an algorithm like Chen’s is completely infeasible with current technology. However, the error was mathematical in nature and did not require any experimentation. Chen’s algorithm consisted of nine different steps; the first eight prepared a particular quantum state, and the ninth step was supposed to exploit it. The mistake was in step nine; Chen believed that his wave function was periodic when in fact it was not.

Should NIST be doing anything differently now in its post–quantum cryptography standardization process? The answer is no. They are doing a great job in selecting new algorithms and should not delay anything because of this new research. And users of cryptography should not delay in implementing the new NIST algorithms.

But imagine how different this essay would be were that mistake not yet discovered? If anything, this work emphasizes the need for systems to be crypto-agile: to be able to easily swap algorithms in and out as research continues. And for using hybrid cryptography—multiple algorithms where the security rests on the strongest—where possible, as in TLS .

And—one last point—hooray for peer review. A researcher proposed a new result, and reviewers quickly found a fatal flaw in the work. Efforts to repair the flaw are ongoing. We complain about peer review a lot, but here it worked exactly the way it was supposed to.

This essay originally appeared in Communications of the ACM .

Tags: cryptography , essays , quantum computing , quantum cryptography

Posted on May 28, 2024 at 7:09 AM • 29 Comments

Friday Squid Blogging: Dana Squid Attacking Camera

Fantastic footage of a Dana squid attacking a camera at a depth of about a kilometer.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Read my blog posting guidelines here .

Tags: squid , video

Posted on May 24, 2024 at 5:03 PM • 81 Comments

On the Zero-Day Market

New paper: “ Zero Progress on Zero Days: How the Last Ten Years Created the Modern Spyware Market “:

Abstract: Spyware makes surveillance simple. The last ten years have seen a global market emerge for ready-made software that lets governments surveil their citizens and foreign adversaries alike and to do so more easily than when such work required tradecraft. The last ten years have also been marked by stark failures to control spyware and its precursors and components. This Article accounts for and critiques these failures, providing a socio-technical history since 2014, particularly focusing on the conversation about trade in zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits. Second, this Article applies lessons from these failures to guide regulatory efforts going forward. While recognizing that controlling this trade is difficult, I argue countries should focus on building and strengthening multilateral coalitions of the willing, rather than on strong-arming existing multilateral institutions into working on the problem. Individually, countries should focus on export controls and other sanctions that target specific bad actors, rather than focusing on restricting particular technologies. Last, I continue to call for transparency as a key part of oversight of domestic governments’ use of spyware and related components.

Tags: academic papers , cyberespionage , spyware , zero-day

Posted on May 24, 2024 at 7:07 AM • 8 Comments

Personal AI Assistants and Privacy

Microsoft is trying to create a personal digital assistant:

At a Build conference event on Monday, Microsoft revealed a new AI-powered feature called “Recall” for Copilot+ PCs that will allow Windows 11 users to search and retrieve their past activities on their PC. To make it work, Recall records everything users do on their PC, including activities in apps, communications in live meetings, and websites visited for research. Despite encryption and local storage, the new feature raises privacy concerns for certain Windows users.

I wrote about this AI trust problem last year:

One of the promises of generative AI is a personal digital assistant. Acting as your advocate with others, and as a butler with you. This requires an intimacy greater than your search engine, email provider, cloud storage system, or phone. You’re going to want it with you 24/7, constantly training on everything you do. You will want it to know everything about you, so it can most effectively work on your behalf. And it will help you in many ways. It will notice your moods and know what to suggest. It will anticipate your needs and work to satisfy them. It will be your therapist, life coach, and relationship counselor. You will default to thinking of it as a friend. You will speak to it in natural language, and it will respond in kind. If it is a robot, it will look humanoid—­or at least like an animal. It will interact with the whole of your existence, just like another person would. […] And you will want to trust it. It will use your mannerisms and cultural references. It will have a convincing voice, a confident tone, and an authoritative manner. Its personality will be optimized to exactly what you like and respond to. It will act trustworthy, but it will not be trustworthy. We won’t know how they are trained. We won’t know their secret instructions. We won’t know their biases, either accidental or deliberate. We do know that they are built at enormous expense, mostly in secret, by profit-maximizing corporations for their own benefit. […] All of this is a long-winded way of saying that we need trustworthy AI. AI whose behavior, limitations, and training are understood. AI whose biases are understood, and corrected for. AI whose goals are understood. That won’t secretly betray your trust to someone else. The market will not provide this on its own. Corporations are profit maximizers, at the expense of society. And the incentives of surveillance capitalism are just too much to resist.

We are going to need some sort of public AI to counterbalance all of these corporate AIs.

EDITED TO ADD (5/24): Lots of comments about Microsoft Recall and security:

Because Recall is “default allow” (it relies on a list of things not to record) … it’s going to vacuum up huge volumes and heretofore unknown types of data, most of which are ephemeral today. The “we can’t avoid saving passwords if they’re not masked” warning Microsoft included is only the tip of that iceberg. There’s an ocean of data that the security ecosystem assumes is “out of reach” because it’s either never stored, or it’s encrypted in transit. All of that goes out the window if the endpoint is just going to…turn around and write it to disk. (And local encryption at rest won’t help much here if the data is queryable in the user’s own authentication context!)

The fact that Microsoft’s new Recall thing won’t capture DRM content means the engineers do understand the risk of logging everything. They just chose to preference the interests of corporates and money over people, deliberately.

Microsoft Recall is going to make post-breach impact analysis impossible. Right now IR processes can establish a timeline of data stewardship to identify what information may have been available to an attacker based on the level of access they obtained. It’s not trivial work, but IR folks can do it. Once a system with Recall is compromised, all data that has touched that system is potentially compromised too, and the ML indirection makes it near impossible to confidently identify a blast radius.

You may be in a position where leaders in your company are hot to turn on Microsoft Copilot Recall. Your best counterargument isn’t threat actors stealing company data. It’s that opposing counsel will request the recall data and demand it not be disabled as part of e-discovery proceedings.

Tags: artificial intelligence , Microsoft , privacy , trust

Posted on May 23, 2024 at 7:00 AM • 46 Comments

Unredacting Pixelated Text

Experiments in unredacting text that has been pixelated.

Tags: redaction , steganography

Posted on May 22, 2024 at 7:03 AM • 13 Comments

Detecting Malicious Trackers

From Slashdot :

Apple and Google have launched a new industry standard called “ Detecting Unwanted Location Trackers ” to combat the misuse of Bluetooth trackers for stalking . Starting Monday, iPhone and Android users will receive alerts when an unknown Bluetooth device is detected moving with them. The move comes after numerous cases of trackers like Apple’s AirTags being used for malicious purposes . Several Bluetooth tag companies have committed to making their future products compatible with the new standard. Apple and Google said they will continue collaborating with the Internet Engineering Task Force to further develop this technology and address the issue of unwanted tracking.

This seems like a good idea, but I worry about false alarms. If I am walking with a friend, will it alert if they have a Bluetooth tracking device in their pocket?

Tags: Apple , Bluetooth , false positives , Google , security standards , stalking , tracking

Posted on May 21, 2024 at 7:09 AM • 43 Comments

IBM Sells Cybersecurity Group

IBM is selling its QRadar product suite to Palo Alto Networks, for an undisclosed—but probably surprisingly small—sum.

I have a personal connection to this. In 2016, IBM bought Resilient Systems, the startup I was a part of. It became part if IBM’s cybersecurity offerings, mostly and weirdly subservient to QRadar.

That was what seemed to be the problem at IBM. QRadar was IBM’s first acquisition in the cybersecurity space, and it saw everything through the lens of that SIEM system. I left the company two years after the acquisition, and near as I could tell, it never managed to figure the space out.

So now it’s Palo Alto’s turn.

Tags: cybersecurity , IBM , Resilient Systems

Posted on May 20, 2024 at 7:04 AM • 10 Comments

Friday Squid Blogging: Emotional Support Squid

When asked what makes this an “emotional support squid” and not just another stuffed animal, its creator says:

They’re emotional support squid because they’re large, and cuddly, but also cheerfully bright and derpy. They make great neck pillows (and you can fidget with the arms and tentacles) for travelling, and, on a more personal note, when my mum was sick in the hospital I gave her one and she said it brought her “great comfort” to have her squid tucked up beside her and not be a nuisance while she was sleeping.

Tags: squid

Posted on May 17, 2024 at 5:04 PM • 100 Comments

Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.

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