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Publication Tracking : Searching for a Group of Authors in Google Scholar

Overview

This page gives tips on how to search for a group of authors in Google Scholar. Click here to access this information as a downloadable PDF.

Click here to access a PDF containing search templates and examples of searching for a group of authors in Google Scholar.

Constructing Your Search

1. Searching for Publications by Any Authors in a Group

To search for publications authored by any authors within a specific group (i.e. search for multiple authors at once), you would use the same techniques outlined above, and combine each author search string using OR or the | symbol. So, for example, if you wanted to search for all publications authored by John E. Doe, Jane M. Example, and Marty B. Test, your search would look something like this:

 

author:“JE Doe”|author:“J Doe”|author:“JM Example”|author:“J Example”|author:“MB Test”|author:“M Test”

 

“|” works the same as a Boolean OR would, in that it will be retrieving publications with JE Doe in the author field, publications with J Doe in the author field, publications with both JE Doe and J Doe in the author field, with JM Example in the author field, etc.

 


2. Searching for Publications Co-Authored by Authors in a Group

To search for publications co-authored by a group of authors, you will instead combine your author search strings by using AND (in this case, just a space, as Google Scholar automatically inserts ANDs for you). So, for example, if you wanted to search for publications co-authored by John E. Doe, Jane M. Example, and Marty B. Test, your search would look something like this:

 

author:“JE Doe”|author:“J Doe” author:“JM Example”|author:“J Example” author:“MB Test”|author:“M Test”

 

This search will only retrieve publications that have ALL of these people listed as the authors.

 


3. Limit by Affiliation Keyword

If all of the authors are from a single institution, can limit your results by affiliation, like so:

 

author:“JE Doe”|author:“J Doe” author:“JM Example”|author:“J Example” author:“MB Test”|author:“M Test” wisconsin

 


4. Limit by Date

You can limit by date by using the date filters on the left-hand side of the page. If you would like to search by a specific date range, you can click “Custom Range.”

 

Screenshot of Google Scholar reuslts page. Date filters are indicated on the left with a red bracket.

Google Scholar has a character limit!

Important: Note that Google Scholar has a limit of only 256 characters for searches

How Do I Interpret These Searches?

Boolean Operators (AND and OR, represented by a space and | in Google Scholar)

OR ("|" in Google Scholar) is used to combine synonyms together. For example, a search of parent|guardian is going to retrieve publications that have the word parent, the word guardian, or both the words parent and guardian in them.

AND (a space in Google Scholar " ") is used to combine concepts together. For example, a search of parent guardian is going to retrieve publications that have BOTH the words parent and guardian in them. If a publication has the word parent, and not the word guardian, your search will not retrieve that publication.

 

Visualization of how Boolean works  In the example on the left, I’m using OR to combine two synonyms. This is helpful when your are searching for a concept and you want to combine all keywords related to that concept. parent OR guardian retrieves results that either contain the term parent or guardian, or both the terms parent and guardian  The example on the right shows what happens when you combine search terms using the Boolean operator AND. Using AND is most effective when combining different concepts. For example, parent AND guardian only retrieves results that contain BOTH the terms parent and guardian. So, in this example, if an article has the term parent but not the term guardian, your search will not retrieve the article. While using AND retrieves less results than using the Boolean Operator OR.


Field Tags

These tell Google Scholar where to search in the article for your terms.

  • author: searches the author field

Quotation Marks " "

These tell Google Scholar to search for two or more words as an intact phrase. So, for example, searching "young adult" is going to search for that intact phrase, whereas searching young adult, without quotation marks, will look for articles that have young and adult anywhere in the article, regardless of how apart those two words might be in the article (e.g., it could retrieve an article that says, "The young polar bear was now an adult").