Setting Up a Google Scholar Profile

What is it?

Google Scholar is a Google search tool that attempts to limit result to more scholarly types of sources. Through it you may find citations to books and journal articles that you might normally get from a library. It also links to online content available freely on the web. 

When you set it up to find material from IUP Library collections, it can even help you find and access online content from IUP Libraries databases.  You can find instructions on how to do that at  this link.

When to Use It

Use Google Scholar to find scholarly articles and books, verify citations, and explore related resources. When books are available through Google Books, some of their content may be available online.

One of the things Google Scholar does is track how many times a publication has been cited in works indexed in its database.  When you look in Google Scholar results, below the entry for each result that has been cited, will be a 'Cited by [number]' link. The [number] is how many other entries Google Scholar has found that cite that work. Some of these may be duplicates. Click the link to see a list of citing works.

If there is no 'Cited by' link, then Google Scholar has not found any citing works. That does not mean it hasn't been cited, just that Google Scholar doesn't have records.

Classic and high impact works may have hundreds (even thousands) of 'Cited by' works, but newer works may have far fewer simply because others have not had time to cite them.

How to Use it?

1. Go to Google Scholar.

2. Enter some search terms (author name and/or part of the title).  If you want to make your search very narrow, click on the down arrow next to the search box to do an advanced search.  

3. Click on the search button.

4. All results in the list will have a Cited by link at the bottom of the record. Click the Cited by link to view who has cited this item. For more information about searching see Google Scholar's Help pages.

Google Scholar Profiles provide a simple way for authors to showcase their academic publications. With such a profile, authors can check to see who is citing their articles, graph citations over time, and compute several citation metrics. They  can also make their profile public, so that it may appear in Google Scholar results when people search for their names.

Google Scholar Profiles are easy to set up and simple to maintain. Authors can add groups of related articles, not just one article at a time; and citation metrics are computed and updated automatically as Google Scholar finds new citations an author's work on the web.

In order to create a profile, you must have a Google Account. To get started, you should sign into your Google Account, or create a Google Account if you do not already have one.  

Go to Google Scholar and click My Profile at the top of the page, on the left side, to create your profile.  From this screen you can:

• Set up your initial profile by entering your profile information, including where you work, name, photo, and research interests.

• Manage your publications.