Scholar Utility Belt

Personal productivity tools for Google Scholar with minimal extra requests.

Scholar Utility Belt adds productivity tools and quality signals to Google Scholar search results and author profiles. All features are optional and can be turned on or off in the extension options. Filtering & Search * Result filter dropdown — Filter by year range, venue keyword, minimum citations, author match, and “Has PDF.” Year filters use Scholar’s server-side parameters and apply across all pages. Venue, citations, author, and PDF filters run on the current page and are remembered across pagination. * Load more pages — Automatically fetch and append the next result pages into the current view so filtered matches appear without clicking through many pages. Year filters already work across pages; this is for venue, citations, author, and PDF filters. * Keyword highlights — Highlight custom search terms in results (e.g. MFA, phishing, LLM). Search syntax highlighting — Color-code phrases, AND/OR/NOT, and author: operators in the search box. * Regex hiding — Hide results whose title or authors/venue matches a regex (e.g. patents, medRxiv). * Semantic expansion — Show related search ideas (synonyms, broader and narrower terms) to refine searches. Quality Badges * Venue quality badges — Show journal and conference quality under each result: * Custom lists — Add your own venue lists in the options; use | for aliases (e.g. Mgmt Sci|Management Science). Per-Result Actions * Save — Save results to a local library. * Remove — Remove papers from the saved library. * Hide — Hide a paper, venue, or author (stored locally; managed in options). * Reading queue — Add papers to a queue; open from the extension icon. * PDF — Open the best PDF (publisher, arXiv, SSRN, or search); page count from metadata is stored to improve reading-load estimates. * Copy Bib — Copy BibTeX (via Crossref or Scholar) to the clipboard. * M (Markdown) — Copy as Markdown with title, authors, abstract, and hashtags for Obsidian, Notion, etc. Signals & Visualizations * Citation velocity — Show citations per year and whether the paper is above or below average for its age. * Reading load badge — Label as “skim”, “read”, or “deep read” from venue type; uses stored PDF page counts when available. Skimmability strip — Green: has PDF, abstract, and citations; yellow: missing some; red: hard to assess. * Data & Code badge — Indicate when snippets or links mention GitHub, Zenodo, OSF, datasets, supplementary materials. * Authorship heatmap — Bold/underline first author, dotted border last author. * Abstract cue emphasis — Bold phrases like “We propose…”, “We evaluate…”, “Using X dataset…” in snippets. Author Profile Pages * Author stats — First/solo citation counts, collaboration distribution (solo/first/middle/last %), and authorship drift (early vs late dominant role). * Sort by citations per year — Optional sort by citation velocity. Quality badges — Same venue badges on profile results. Keyboard Navigation * j / k — Move down/up between results (Vim-style). * Enter — Open selected result in a new tab. * s — Save selected result. * c — Click Cite for selected result. * / — Focus search box. * p — Open command palette for quick actions. Data & Privacy * Local storage — Saved papers, tags, notes, hidden items, reading queue, and settings are stored locally in your browser. * Optional network use — Crossref (DOIs, retractions, BibTeX), hover summary (paper landing page), and semantic expansion use external requests; these are optional and user-triggered or opt-in. * No tracking — No analytics, telemetry, or third-party tracking. All features are configurable in the extension options. You choose which signals and tools to show.