AKU - Scopus Guide: Searching Scopus

In Scopus you can search by Documents, Authors or Affiliations.

Documents include journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, articles in press and data papers. Follow the steps below to learn how to perform a basic document search:

• Enter your search terms into the Search documents box [1]
  • By default, Scopus will search in the Article title, Abstract and Keywords of documents
• You can specify in which fields to search using the drop-down menu [2]. 
• Use the +Add search field [3] option to add additional fields 
• Each new search field is combined using the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT [4]
• To see a complete list of advanced field codes, select Advanced document search [5]

When you search by authors, you can search by last and/or first name. You also have the option to search by ORCID iD.

Refine your results [2]

From the left-hand menu, you can:

• Search within your results
• Select only open access documents (learn more about the Open Access filter below)
• Use filters to limit or exclude results from your search, including, but not limited to:
  • Access Type
  • Publication Year
  • Keyword
  • Affiliation
  • Author Name
  • Subject Area 

Analyze Search Results button [4]

Use this feature to gain further insights into any list of document results.

Scopus provides the ability to search the list of cited references in articles, books, etc. If the reference which you are starting with is very relevant to your research, other related publications have probably cited references which are also relevant to your research. Cited reference searching is a useful extension to your standard keyword search.

Search Tips in Scopus

•  loose phrase, use double quotation marks

 “heart attack” will search for documents where heart and attack appear together 

• asterisk is a wildcard

 “criminal* insan*” finds criminally insane and criminal insanity. 

• exact phrase, enclose the phrase in braces  { }

Note: {heart-attack} and {heart attack} return different results, as the first will search for results that contain a hyphen between heart and attack

Filter options:

• Publication date range [6], then specify Published from / To [7]

  • Choose from 'All years' or a range of years by using the drop down arrows (the default is 'All years')

• Date added to Scopus [8]:

  • Specify 'Anytime' or within the last 7, 14 or 30 days by using the drop down arrow (the default is 'Anytime')

When you search by affiliation, just type the affiliation's name. The search will begin to auto-populate.

Saving your search and setting up alerts [1] 

Quickly review or edit your search from the top of the page. Registered users can sign in to:

• Save searches
• Set up alerts to be notified when new documents are added to Scopus that match this search

Export selected search results [3] to: 

• Mendeley 

• RefWorks 

• SciVal 

• RIS format (for import into EndNote) 

• CSV 

• BibTeX 

• Plain Text 

On the document details page, you can filter by Open Access types, including:

• Gold open: Documents that are in journals which only publish open access
• Hybrid Gold: Documents that are in journals which provide authors the choice of publishing open access
• Bronze: Published version of record or manuscript accepted for publication; the publisher has chosen to provide temporary or permanent free access
• Green: Published version or manuscript accepted for publication, available at repository