Google Scholar: Truncation

In the early days, Google Scholar provided complete records for authors and the publication source. However, since about 2012 both fields are regularly truncated, with part of the field replaced by dots […..].

Truncation makes finding the right publication frustrating

We do not know why Google Scholar decided to introduce truncation. It might be related to the “space” available in these fields. Unfortunately it can make finding the right publication very frustrating, both in the Google Scholar interface and in Publish or Perish:

  • Sometimes the name of the author one is searching for does not seem to appear in the record at all, because it is replaced by dots.
  • With common journal names, it becomes impossible to distinguish in which journal an article is published. European journal of…. and International journal of…. could be one of many hundreds of titles.

Author truncation

There does not seem to any particular logic to author truncation. Sometimes four or more authors are shown in full, in other cases the 2nd of two authors is truncated. That said; if one normally co-author with only one or two others, author truncation is generally not very problematic. Out of the 25 co-authored publications in my h-index, only three were truncated, and the 20 single-authored ones are also shown in full.

Journal truncation

The logic to journal truncation seems even more obscure. Similar to authors, some journals with long names are written in full, whereas some shorter ones are truncated. However, as the first screenshot shows, the same journal can also be truncated in many different ways.

tip68a

Below, out of two articles in the same issue of a journal, one was shown with the full name and the other with a truncated journal name.

tip68b

Author & journal truncation combined

Journal titles appear to be more likely to be truncated when there are more authors or authors with longer names, so it seems likely that Google Scholar applies a limit to the maximum number of characters to the two field combined.

Write to Google Scholar support

If you would like to see truncation removed, 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

Support Publish or Perish

The development of the Publish or Perish software is a volunteering effort that has been ongoing since 2006. Download and use of Publish or Perish is and will remain free (gratis), but your support toward the costs of hosting, bandwidth, and software development are appreciated. Your support helps further development of Publish or Perish for new data sources and additional features.

Feedback

PS: If you are using Publish or Perish on a regular basis, please take 5 minutes to provide me with some feedback.
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