Skip to Main Content

Course & Subject Guides

Google Scholar

Use this guide to learn about maximizing Google Scholar for your research.

Citation Searching in Google Scholar

The citation information in Google Scholar is extracted from the scholarly journal articles within the Scholar database, and from the U.S. patents contained in the Google Patents database (linked below). Users have the option to eliminate the patents as the source of citation data and/or the option to include citations from legal journals and opinions from the federal and state courts. If a publication has been cited by these sources, it will contain a "Cited By Link" in its entry; clicking on that link will display the citing journal articles and patents (and the court opinions, if selected)

  How to Find Citation Counts via Google Scholar and "Who is Citing Whom"

  1. Go to Google Scholar.
  2. Select Advanced Scholar Search (down arrow on the search box).
  3. Enter the appropriate search terms.  Enter just enough information to find what you need - do not fill in the complete search form.    
  4. Click on the Search Scholar button.
  5. Locate the correct article in the search results list.
  6. If the article was cited by others, you will see a "Cited by" link at the bottom of the record. Click this link to view who has cited this item. For more information about searching, access  Google Scholar's Help page below.

Be aware:

  • Google Scholar does not index all scholarly articles; therefore, some articles citing the item under study may not be counted.
  • Google Scholar includes citations from an array of sources in its cited by calculation, including PowerPoints and Word documents, and gives everything an equal rank.
  • Author names can be tricky to search and the results can vary greatly depending on how the name is entered; we recommend searching only the author's last name and combining that with the main title in quotations.
  • Variants in how the item is cited can result in more than one entry for the item under study.
  • The term "citation" in brackets [CITATION] at the beginning of an entry, indicates that the full text of the item is not accessible through Google Scholar. To see the full text of the item, use PittCat (for books or article title) or use the Journal Finder on PittCat, search for specific ejournals by TITLE or ISSN number (for journal title).

Software & Programs for Google Scholar Citation Data

Be Informed