Google Scholar: Missing subject areas

Publish or Perish tutorial

Anne-Wil Harzing - Sat 6 Feb 2016 16:10 (updated Thu 2 Jun 2022 11:07)

In the early days, Google Scholar provided the opportunity to filter by subject area (see Publish or Perish screenshot).

Subject area classification was not flawless

This feature wasn’t flawless; some journals (and thus an author’s publications in those journals) were classified in clearly inappropriate disciplines. Some articles appeared not to be classified at all, and were only shown if all subject categories were ticked. However, this feature was VERY useful when searching for authors with a very common name as it allowed you to distinguish Peter Smith the physicist from Peter Smith the archaeologist, and Peter Smith the computer scientist.

Google Scholar removed subject areas in May 2012

Unfortunately, in May 2012 Google Scholar redesigned its interface and integrated the advanced search page in its general search page. In doing so, it removed the option to select specific subject areas. As a result subject area filtering is now no longer possible, neither in Google Scholar, nor in Publish or Perish.

For more information see:

http://googlescholar.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/our-new-modern-look.html

If you would like to see subject areas reinstated, let Google Scholar know. Obviously, there is no guarantee they will listen, but we can always try…

http://support.google.com/scholar/bin/request.py?contact_type=general

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