How to search Scopus

Searching Scopus requires you to have an answerable research question and a well developed search strategy.  If you don't have these you may wish to review:

Basic searching requires an understanding of keyword searching, boolean operators and some search techniques:

Basic searching in Scopus is as simple as adding in a few words or phrases into the search box. The default is to search within the Article Title, Abstract, Keywords. This narrows the search to just the most relevant fields.

Searching with keywords:

1. From Scopus main search window, click in the search box.
2. Type in your term(s) (e.g. mortality).
3. Click Search (button).

Searching with more than one keyword

If you are using more than one keyword you need to consider how to combine the keywords to get the items you want.  You do this with boolean operators. When using boolean operators you may also need to consider using brackets for your search to help control when those operations are done.  

Controlling keyword searches

What if you only want to look for keywords in specific parts of the item record?  Each part of the item record is known as a field.  You can focus your search by only looking for keywords in the title field or in the title and abstract fields.  This is known as Field Searching.

For a search on the topic of "What is the risk of mortality due to cell phone use in distracted teen drivers?" we might want to search the concepts of mortality, cell phone, distracted driving and teens. 

• Each group of terms for a particular concept are entered together in one search box.
• A new concept line can be added by clicking on + Add search field.
• Each concept line are connected with AND by default.

Try it with these concepts

mortal* OR fatal* OR death

"cell phone*" OR "cellular phone*" OR "mobile phone*" OR smartphone* OR cellphone*

"distract* driv*" OR "inattentive driv*" OR "driving while distracted" 

teen* OR adolescen* OR youth OR young

Example search in Scopus:

For more information about phrase searching and using truncation and wildcards review those sections.

Elsevier. “How Do I Search in Scopus? Combining Searches.” Scopus: Access and Use Support Center, 18 Jan. 2023, https://service.elsevier.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/34325/c/10545/supporthub/scopus/#panelCQ1.

Search for a known article in Scopus:

1. From Scopus main search window, change the Search within (box) to Article title.
2. Type the title of your article or a few keywords from the title into the Search documents (box).
3. Click + Add search field, to add another search line.
4. Change the Search within (box) to Authors.
5. Type in the last name(s) of some or all of the authors for your article.
6. Click Search (button).

Searching for a known article requires an understanding of: