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Legal Scholarship Publishing Guide: Google Scholar

Google Scholar Profiles

A Google Scholar profile is an author profiles that displays your published work indexed by Google Scholar. Since Google Scholar's web crawler is so powerful, it easily indexes academic papers that are both open and closed access (but ranks open access publications higher). Google Scholar profiles can act like a personal website and resource for yourself. It displays your scholarly work and article citation metrics and you can also find other researchers who in your research area.

Maintenance

Google Scholar profiles do not need much maintenance if you choose to automatically have Google update your profile with new work. If you decide to choose the automatic option it is very important for you to review added articles. You can easily delete articles that are not yours or add articles that Google did not pick up.

Limitations

Google Scholar is a great way to maximize your research visibility and connect with other researchers, however there are some limitations to the platform. Management of profiles can only be performed by the owner of the profile, third party groups and individuals (the library, assistants etc.) cannot edit or update it for you. Citations counted by Google Scholar aren't as carefully screened for accuracy as they are on subscription based academic search engines , such as Scopus or HeinOnline. This can lead to higher numbers and potential mistakes in Google Scholar's metrics.

Creating a Google Scholar Profile

  1. Log on to scholar.google.com and click the “My Profile” link at the top of the page to get your account setup started.

  2. On the next page, add your affiliation information as Osgoode Hall Law School, York University and Osgoode or York email address so Google Scholar can verify your account.

  3. Add keywords that are relevant to your research interests so others can find you when browsing a subject area. Provide a link to your faculty page.

Keyword Tips

You can search other profiles with similar keywords to see other researchers using the same word. Select the magnifying glass to the left of the page (you must be on a Google Scholar profile to do this) and enter in this search operator:

  • label:keyword
  • To search two or more keywords at the same time:
    • label:keyword + label:keyword
  • For keywords that are phrase use the underscore function to separate words:
    • label:keyphrase_keyphrase

screenshot of Google Scholar profile circling magnifying glass at the top right corner

 

Adding Publications

  1. Review the list of publications Google Scholar thinks you have authored and select the articles that are yours.

  2.  If you have a common name be more cautious when reviewing this list, as there will likely be publications that do not belong to you. Deselect the articles you don't want on your profile or that you have not authored.

  3. You can choose to allow Google to automatically add new publications to your profile in the future. This feature can save you a lot of time if you have many publications. However, if you’ve got a very common name you may be finding you have to regularly check your profile to make sure the publications are yours.

  4. Your profile is automatically set to private if you just created it. Select the edit button and check "Make it public".

Missing Articles

  1. Add missing articles by selecting "Add" in the grey tool bar on your profile

  2. Add your paper to your profile and try to include as much descriptive information as possible (this is the metadata Google Scholar will use to find citations to your work)

  3. Select "Save" and repeat for any other missing articles.

Extra Resources