Using Google Scholar effectively

Google Scholar gives a detailed look into current research papers. The fulltext search engine is simply amazing. The only problem is how to navigate in the huge amount of content. In most cases, there are more papers visible then a single person can read. There is a need for a strategy to browse through the information and find the correct paper and improve the own knowledge about a subject at the same time.

I've tested out some possibilities, e.g. creating mindmaps, but the most effective form of reading Google Scholar papers are textual notes. The screenshot shows an example about a topic of Artificial Intelligence but the strategy works for any other topic as well.

The notes containing in most cases a certain request to Google Scholar, for example “pddl task model”. Such a request produces a selective amount of papers. Sometimes one of the papers is interesting, then i write down the exact url. Or I write down a short note about what is inside in the paper. The main idea is to make search history visible. So it is possible, that i can see, what I've searched 1 day ago, 2 days ago and so on. It is mainly a bookmark like list which shows what I've searched and found in the past.

After a while the list of notes will grow. It is possible to create special categories, for example only notes about Artificial Intelligence, or only notes about the Forth programming language. I've found out that this an effective way to investigate a complex topic which was unknown before. Publishing the notes in a blog or in a pdf paper makes no sense, it is more a help to memorize the subject. For example the written down vocabulary “teleoperation, pddl, action model, keyframes” and so on, can be seen as path through a topic. And yes it is important to memorize them, because this will help to find further papers about the subject.

Google Scholar needs from the human user at least some keywords. If the user is able to give the right keywords in the right combination, Google Scholar will show the best information it has. I would guess, most of the time, I'm figuring out for which keywords I have to ask. At the beginning this is not clear, most keywords are given only in the fulltext. They can be called words which a references by the researchers who are writing about a subject.