Scopus

Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and covers sciences, engineering, medicine, social sciences and some arts.  Scopus indexes journal articles, conference papers and book chapters.  Scopus does not cover book reviews or conference meeting notes.

 

Document (Basic) search

• Enter your search terms
• Use search techniques such as Boolean operators, truncation and phrase searching.
• Select limits to refine your results.

Top tip for phrase searching:  In Scopus you can search for exact phrases by putting curly brackets {  } around your search term.  If you are looking for similar or approximate phrases you can use quotation marks around your terms to indicate this.

• Once you have run your search,  expand or limit your results by selecting options from the panel to the left of your search results. 

 

Advanced search

• In Advanced Search enter a search string. See below.
• Build a more complex search query using search techniques, including Boolean operators and field specific searching.

Top tip: Use PUBYEAR to search for articles published within a particular date range.

For more helpful advice on using search techniques in your search, take a  look at the Search Tips provided by Scopus.

 

Watch a video

Scopus Tutorial: How to conduct a basic search

Video transcript (pdf - 40 KB).

 

Example

Here is an exemplar (jpg - 156 KB) of a search in Scopus using the smoking cessation example.