PoP 8 new features (10): Google Scholar - limitation of the number of search results

Week 10 of a weekly announcement of new features of Publish or Perish version 8

Anne-Wil Harzing - (updated Sat 17 Sep 2022 09:50)

Maximum results setting for Google Scholar

On the 1st of November 2021, nearly exactly 15 years after first launching Publish or Perish, we released version 8 of the software. After two months of "soft launch", we are now ready to publicise its new features. To do so, I will post about a new feature every Thursday. If you want a complete overview have a look at this blogpost: Publish or Perish version 8.

We added a drop-down box allowing you to restrict the maximum number of results for Google Scholar searches (see screenshot above) for individual searches. Seven options are pre-set, but you can type any number in the box. As this is a per search limit, the choice does not carry over to other searches except for the “duplicate the current search” option.

This new option addresses Google Scholar limitations and makes short searches more convenient. The underlying reason is that Google Scholar only provides 10 results at a time, so to get 1,000 results Publish or Perish needs to send 100 subrequests to Google Scholar.

This means you will quickly approach the request rate limits set by Google Scholar, which in turn causes Publish or Perish to limit the request rate by pausing longer and longer between requests. This means searching might become quite slow.

If you only need the top-10/20/50 results, limiting the maximum number of results reduces the load on Google Scholar and speeds up your searches. This new feature is also useful if you are still fine-tuning a complex search and don’t need to see all results to establish whether your search is providing the expected output.

Download Publish or Perish version 8

You can download the latest version of Publish or Perish from the following pages:

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Support Publish or Perish

Development of the Publish or Perish software is a volunteering effort that has been ongoing since 2006, regularly adding new features and data sources and expanding use cases and geographical distribution.

To keep Publish or Perish free (gratis) for everyone, your contribution toward our costs of hosting, bandwidth, and software development is appreciated. If you find Publish or Perish useful, then this is your chance to say "thank you" to the developers.

You can support us by buying the Publish or Perish guide or tutorial and/or through a donation. Only one user out of every five thousand contributes (that is, only 0.02% of all users!), so any support is very welcome indeed. For more detail see: Support Publish or Perish.

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Copyright © 2022 Anne-Wil Harzing. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Sat 17 Sep 2022 09:50

Anne-Wil Harzing is Emerita Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.

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