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Economics

Library Resources for Department of Economics

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a search engine that specifically searches for scholarly literature. It finds peer-reviewed articles, preprints, technical reports, books, theses, abstracts, and even patents and court opinions, from multiple sources.  These include academic publishers, university presses and repositories, professional societies, preprint repositories and the web. 

Before you start a search you should first set your preferences in the Settings.

Google Scholar provides information about its features in their Search site. 

Interested in knowing more about Google Scholar?  Follow their blog.

  1. Visit Google Scholar at https://google.scholar.com
  2. Click the menu button, which looks like this: Google Menu button: three horizontal lines
  3. Click Settings: Gear icon with the word Settings
  4. Select Library Links: 
    Google Scholar Drop Down Settings Menu with Library Links circled
  5. Search for University of Virginia if it isn't already selected as a choice, and Save it. You can add up to 5 libraries. You should leave "Open WorldCat - Library Search" checked.
    Screenshot showing Library Links circled, and University of Virginia and Open WorldCat listed and checked.
  6. Now when you use Google Scholar, a link to fulltext articles through UVA will appear next to the results
    Google Scholar Search Results with Find This @UVA Libraries button circled in top right
  7. Back in Settings, click on Search results. Do you want to include patents in your search?  If not, clear the check box.  Select the Bibliography manager (citation management) you wish to use.  Make other selections as appropriate.
    Screenshot of Google Scholar Settings under Search results, with various options shown
  8. Click on Languages if you need to change the default which is English for Google tips and messages, and for search results.

The Google Scholar Button is a browser plug-in that adds a Scholar button to your toolbar.  It works with Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge (and other Chromium-based browsers), and Safari. 

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You can install the button as you would any other extension, but note that you can also do it from within the Google Scholar Settings:

Click on the Button link in the Scholar Settings and then click Install Scholar Button to look up papers as you browse. 

Screenshot of Scholar Settings, with Button and Install Scholar links circled

Clicking the button allows you to find full text on the web or from your library.  Simply highlight a citation you find on a web page. Click on the Google Scholar button. Read the full text if UVA Library has a subscription..You will see a pop up window with a list of the top 3 results. There are several options that allow you to expand the page, go to the article, and copy or download the citation. 

 

Screen shot of PDF with citation highlighted, alongside Google Scholar results showing UVA holdings

 

 

After you have changed the Settings and are linked to the UVA Library, you'll see that some of the content has links to an accessible copy.  Note that you can filter and sort by date, and include (by default) or exclude patents and citations using the left menu bar. I searched for the phrase 'Corporate social responsibility'. 

Scholar screenshot with PDF links on right side circled

Click on the Find This@UVa Libraries and it will take you to the resource that is in a subscription database that we have access to. The other links will take you to freely accessible content from non-UVA sources.  This screen shot shows links to ResearchGate, Scientific Research (scirp.org), Springer, Cardiff University (cf.ac.uk), and Baria Vungtau University in Vietnam (bvu.edu.vn).

Let's look more closely at one of the resources:

The third one on the list is Corporate social responsibility by D. Matten & J. Moon, which is from the Springer Journal of Business Ethics.  

After clicking on the article title you will be taken to the Springer site where you can read the abstract and the references list.  

UVA Library subscribes to this Springer content (as you might infer from the presence of the Find This@UVA Libraries button), so you can download the paper (if you are on Grounds, or have turned on your VPN).

However, instead of clicking on the article title, you could simply click on the Find This@UVA Libraries link. This takes you to the UVA Journal Finder: Citation Link page, and for this particular article you have three options to access the article.

 

Journal Finder: Citation Link results with three 'get article' buttons circled

 

 

From the Springer page you can click on the journal title which will show you the Impact Factor, available year range, Volumes, Issues, number of articles, and how many of the articles are open access.  

You can now click on the author's name in the results list. That will take you to the Dirk Matten Google Scholar page.  You will see a list of all of his content, the year published, how often they were cited (and exceptions in counting), a list of all of his co-authors, and citation indices. There are also links to his home page and organizations or schools he is or has been affiliated with.   

Look at the links below the entry.  

Links below the entry include text like 'Cited by 487' and 'Related Articles'

Cited by 497: These are the articles or books that cited this article. Click the link to see the list.  Note that these resources also have links to freely accessible content (many at the UVA Library!) and from other sources.  They also have a link set below the entry. 

Related articles: These are articles, books, or other content that contain similar content to this article.  Note that these resources also have links to freely accessible content (many at the UVA Library!) and from other sources.  They also have a link set below the entry. 

All 16 versions: These are all versions of the original article. They may be preprints, conference presentations, abstracts, versions with a different title, or papers. 

Web of Science: Click on this link to go to the Web of Science page for this article.  There are 126 citing articles from the Web of Science Core Collection, and 145 in all databases. Each entry has a Find@UVa button and a View Abstract button. Each citation can be saved to citation management tools.  Select the one you prefer in the drop down list at the top of the page.

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Import into RefWorks: Click this link to import the citation information into your RefWorks account.  You should have already set up this option when you were in the Settings page, and you will need to be logged into your RefWorks account. 

Cite: This will open a pop up window showing the citation in several different formats including APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard and Vancouver.  There are also links to 4 citation management tools: BibTeX, EndNote, RefMan and RefWorks.

Library Search: Click on this link to go to the OCLC WorldCat catalog. You should see this box if you have WorldCat listed in the 5 libraries in your Settings, and if you are also connected to the UVA Library.  Click Continue.

This will take you to the WorldCat page for the book that include this resource. You will see details about the work, including a table of contents, abstract, authors, and description.  There is a Find@UVa button, a link to show all editions and formats, and a link to show you all of the libraries worldwide that have this resource. This can be convenient if you are traveling and need a physical copy of the work. It is always good to know where you can find your sources.  It is a great tool for locating copies of other sources, too.

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Full View: Click this to go directly to the resource.  This article opens in JSTOR where it can be read, downloaded, or cited.  You can read the abstract and the references.  There is also information about the journal.  

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:

  1. click "Since Year" to show only recently published papers, sorted by relevance;
  2. click "Sort by date" to show just the new additions, sorted by date;
  3. 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:

  1. click a library link, e.g., "FindIt@UVa", to the right of the search result;
  2. click a link labeled [PDF] to the right of the search result;
  3. click "All versions" under the search result and check out the alternative sources;
  4. click "Related articles" or "Cited by" under the search result to explore similar articles.

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. 

These tips are from the Google Scholar help page.