Google Scholar (Advanced Search)
Writing about web page http://scholar.google.com/advanced_scholar_search
I'm just starting my PhD and so am lost in the Fangornian forest of potential reading materials. There are many ways to locate material but I'd like to share a method I am increasingly favouring over others because I find it produces a tighter focus.
- Think of a seminal paper pertinent to your area of research
- Go to Google Scholar's advanced search page
- Enter the title and author in the corresponding boxes
- Click search
- Assuming your paper appears click the "Cited by" link
That produces a list of (possibly less well known) papers likely to be helpful. No doubt there are other ways to locate citations but it works for me and led to an extremely useful paper that other methods missed.
I'd be interested to know if others have found stategies to help "filter" their literature hunts.
Michael Hammond
Yes I have become a fan of google scholar – though like everything else web wise things are never as easy as they seem but, for all the qualifications you can make, it does give some indications of key findings and often you can click and get straight to the article. On another note I was listening to editor of the times or something the other day and they asked him of all the people who died today how do you know who will you chose to put in the obituary column – and he said well you just know – it is the same for the book reviews there are hundreds of books out there and the literary editor just knows who to review – so I wonder if academic colleagues are the same they ‘just know’ what is important even if they cannot describe why very well or not be aware of the limitations
24 Oct 2005, 18:59
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