2. Scopus
1.Scopus in a nutshell
2.Searching Scopus
3.Search results in Scopus
4.The document page in Scopus
5.Analyzing search results
6.Extra functionalities
3. 1. Scopus in a nutshell
• “Citation & abstract” database, made by Elsevier
• No full-text articles (but contains links to full-text where available)
• Abstract & reference list - who is citing who?
• Multidisciplinary database
• From Astronomy to Zoology, incl. Psychology
• Contents
• More than 21.000 journals are indexed
• (Chapters of) books are included in the index
• Emphasis on articles from 1996, but also older material available
4. 1. Access to Scopus
• Access: from home with a VPN-connection
• URL: www.scopus.com
6. 2. Searching Scopus: the search fields
You can select from various
search fields. Your choice
depends on the type of
search: a known article
search or a topic search.
7. 2. Searching Scopus for a known article
Choose for example ‘Article Title’ combined with the name of
one of the authors
This is one of the results
8. 2. Searching Scopus for articles on a topic
Research question:
Are there differences between boys
and girls with regards to
cyberbullying?
9. 2. Searching Scopus for articles on a topic
When you enter all words, you get 30 results:
A structured search often leads to more, and more relevant
results.
10. 2. Searching Scopus for articles on a topic
Preparing a structured search:
• Translate your research question into a search profile –
this contains the words or word combinations you will use
in the search
• Think up terms for the most important terms in your
research questions – and think up synonyms
• Think about the relationship between these terms
11. Are there differences between boys
and girls with regards to
cyberbullying?
Search terms for cyberbullying:
Cyberbullying
Cyber-bullying (spelling variant)
12. Are there differences between boys
and girls with regards to
cyberbullying?
Search terms for differences between boys
and girls:
Gender differences
Sex differences
13. 2. Searching Scopus: a search profile; the
relationship between the search terms
OR: between terms
refering to the same part
of the question
Results: green parts
AND: between terms
refering to different parts of
the question
Results: purple part
14. 2. Searching Scopus: a search profile
(Cyberbullying OR Cyber-bullying)
AND
(Gender differences OR Sex differences)
15. 2. Searching Scopus: 1st part of the research
question
Choose the Boolean operator: AND or OR
Here we are using synonyms, so we choose OR
16. 2. Searching Scopus: 1st part of the research
question
In the upper left corner you see the number of search results
17. 2. Searching Scopus: 2nd part of the research
question
To search for results for the second part of the research question
(differences between boys and girls), you click Search in the upper left
corner of the page, to return to the Search page.
Click Reset form to delete the first search terms
19. 2. Searching Scopus: combining the searches
We are looking for articles about cyberbullying AND gender differences,
- for the overlap between the two result sets.
In Scopus you can combine searches via Search History. Search History
is located under the search fields on the Search page.
Enter the search numbers preceded
by a hash tag # and combine the
searches with AND or with OR
20. 3. Search results in Scopus
In the results list you see the title, authors, year of publication, journal
or book title, and the number of citations received.
The most recent article is shown on top.
When you click Show all abstracts, you will also see the abstracts of
the articles.
This structured search returns 119 documents – a
lot more than the 30 results returned by the
simple search.
21. 3. Search results in Scopus: refine options
A useful refine option is Document type. Select
Review for review articles that give an overview of
the current state of affairs in a field of research.
At the left side of the screen you find the ‘refine’ options:
you can, for example, select specific years, or publications
in certain languages (not visible now). Mark the options and
click ‘Limit to’ to refine.
22. 3. Search results in Scopus: (re-)order results
In the upper right corner you can sort the results, for example
according to the number of citations received.
Take a look at the results when you click Relevance – the results will
be ordered according to the number of times your search terms
appear in the result.
23. 4. The document page in Scopus
When you click a title, you are brought to the document page. Here you
see:
Information about the article
Information about the author
The reference list of the article
Keywords
The abstract
24. 4. The document page in Scopus
And:
The articles in Scopus citing
this article
Articles in Scopus similar to
the article, based on the
overlap in the reference list
This helps you to follow a subject in time: you
are led to more recent research
25. 5. ‘Analyzing’ search results
Above the list of results you find the option ‘Analyze search results’:
With this option you can create an overview of the most important (most
productive) authors, journals etc. for your topic.
26. 5. ‘Analyzing’ search results: view most productive
journals (sources)
The numbers under Documents are links to the articles in
your search results from that particular source
27. 5. Analyzing search results: view most productive
authors
This information can be helpful in choosing articles from the list.
When you click the name of an author, you can see his/her other
research. Is he /she an expert on your topic?
28. 6. Extra functionalities
1. Finding the full-text of an article – click the signature of Erasmus and
the link-resolver will search for the full-text in the collection of the
University Library.
2. My List – allows you to temporarily save interesting articles.
Mark an interesting title and click More … and then Add to My List
above the search results
3. Before you close Scopus: Click My List and choose for More … >
Create Bibliography. You can create a reference list in (a slightly
incorrect version of) the APA-style. See the handout for more
information. You can also e-mail My List to yourself.
29. Questions?
Send an e-mail to gulpers@ubib.eur.nl or use the question
form on the website of the University Library
(www.eur.nl/ub/en/)