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Scopus in Detail: How does it work?
Scopus has been designed and user-tested so you can spend less time mastering databases and more time on research.
Perform a search
- Basic search: Begin your search directly from the homepage.
- Advanced search: Enter a command line search using Boolean operators.
- Quick search: Runs a search on title, abstract, author keyword, index keywords and author fields.
- Author search: Enter an author name and find all articles associated with that author.
View your results
- Tabular display of results allows you to easily sort results according to date, relevance, authors, source title and number of citations (cited-by’s).
- Refine Results gives you a quick overview of all of your results according to source title, author name, year, document type and subject area.
- Search within results allows you to search again through all fields within your results list.
Link to full text
Full-text articles are only one click away and links are displayed directly from the results list, the abstract page and the references.
A variety of linking options are available, including:
- “View at Publisher” links to the full-text articles on publishers’ sites:
via CrossRef and via Scopus’ own knowledgebase to link to journals not covered by CrossRef. - “Full-Text” links allow you to check your library’s holdings and link to your entitled full-text articles via a link resolver. This makes use of the library’s full text entitlements to ensure a full text link is shown only when you have rights to the full text, saving time and reducing frustration. LinkFinderPlus and SFX can support this technology.
- If the entitled full text article is not available, a standard OpenURL link can display alternative services, such as document delivery or the OPAC / library catalog.
- In addition to adding the best of the web via Scirus, Scopus also includes "View on Web" links to grey literature, such as dissertations and patents. If Scopus does not have an article's abstract available and more than ten Scopus records cite the document, a "View on Web" link is constructed from the references.
Browse citations and references
- Browse the cited references of articles published from 1996 onwards and make connections across subject areas.
- View all the citations that your articles has received from other articles covered by Scopus.
- Set up a document citation alert to receive notice of new citing articles.
- View articles that share references by using ‘Related Documents’.
Export your results
Export your results to reference management software such as RefWorks. An export of your results also contains the citation count (cited by number) for those results. A RefWorks icon appears in the Scopus search results so users can identify previously saved references.
Users can link directly from the reference saved in RefWorks to the citations of that article in Scopus and to other articles in Scopus that contain one or more references. This feature also indicates when the reference has received new citations in Scopus. The RefWorks: Scopus integration is at no charge for mutual RefWorks and Scopus customers
Particularly useful for students is the 'Bibliography' function under the "Output" button that exports a list of chosen articles to Word, in any of ten of the most commonly preferred formats.
Set up alerts
- Search alerts send new results from a previous search directly to your mailbox.
- Document citation alerts notify you when an article you specify is cited by another article.
- Author citation alerts to notify you when any of an author's publications get cited.
- The alerts can run daily, weekly or monthly and deliver new results to you by e-mail.
