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Elsevier Developer Portal

Scopus Search Guide

Search Language

 

SCOPUS Search API supports a Boolean syntax, which is a type of search allowing users to combine keywords with operators such as AND, NOT and OR to further produce more relevant results. For example, a Boolean search could be "heart" AND "brain". This would limit the search results to only those documents containing the two keywords.

URL encoding

 

The Boolean search is submitted through the query string parameter 'query'. As with all other query string parameters, the contents of the submitted search must be URL-encoded. It should be noted that the '+' character serves a special purpose as a query string value, functioning as an equivalent to the space character (i.e. %20). In order to submit a literal character '+' it must be properly URL-encoded (i.e. %2B).

This search...

must be URL-encoded as:

KEY(mouse AND NOT cat OR dog)

KEY%28mouse+AND+NOT+cat+OR+dog%29

KEY(cat AND dog AND NOT rodent OR mouse)

KEY%28cat+AND+dog+AND+NOT+rodent+OR+mouse%29

DOI("10.1021/es052595+")

DOI%28%2210.1021%2Fes052595%2B%22%29

Example:

http://api.elsevier.com/content/search/scopus?query=DOI%28%2210.1021%2Fes052595%2B%22%29

Using boolean operators

 

You can use Boolean operators (AND, OR, AND NOT) in your search. If you use more than one operator in your search, Scopus interprets your search according to the order of precedence. You can also use proximity operators (pre/n, w/n) with Boolean operators.

 

AND

Finds only those documents that contain all of the terms.

Use AND when all the terms must appear and may be far apart from each other. 

Example

lesion AND pancreatic

 

Note

If you are searching for a phrase which contains the word "and," omit the word "and" from your search. For example:profit loss finds the phrase "profit and loss"

OR

Finds documents that contain any of the terms.

Use OR when at least one of the terms must appear (such as synonyms, alternate spellings, or abbreviations).

Example

kidney OR renal

AND NOT

Excludes documents that include the specified term from the search.

Use AND NOT to exclude specific terms. This connector must be used at the end of a search. 

Example

ganglia OR tumor AND NOT malignant

 

Note

         If you want to search for the words or, and, or and not literally, enter them in double quotation marks: "and", "or", "and not".

         If you enter more than one word or phrase in the same text box without using an operator, AND is assumed.

 

Order of precedence rules

Searches with multiple operators are processed in the following order:

1.     OR

2.     AND

3.     AND NOT

After the precedence rules are applied, the search is read left to right.

 

All these searches...

are processed as...

KEY (mouse OR rat AND rodent)

KEY (rodent AND rat OR mouse)

KEY (rat OR mouse AND rodent)

KEY(mouseOR rat) AND rodent

 

This search...

is processed as...

KEY (mouse AND NOT cat OR dog)

KEY (cat AND dog AND NOT rodent OR mouse)

KEY((mouse) AND NOT (cat OR dog))

KEY((cat AND dog) AND NOT (rodent OR mouse))

 

Note

AND NOT can give unexpected results when you have multiple operators. We recommend that you put it at the end of your searches.

For example, the following searches return a large number of results:

         KEY(cold) AND NOT KEY(influenza)

         KEY(cold) AND NOT KEY(influenza) AND KEY(rhinovirus)

         KEY(cold) AND NOT (KEY(influenza) AND KEY(rhinovirus))

To exclude influenza from your search, you should use the following search instead:

KEY(cold) AND KEY(rhinovirus) AND NOT KEY(influenza)

Proximity operators

Scopus does not support using the operators (AND or AND NOT) as an argument to a proximity expression.

Example

cat pre/10 (dog AND mouse) - invalid

However,
cat pre/10 dog AND mouse is valid because AND  has a lower precedence, so the search is effectively (cat pre/10 dog) AND mouse

However, you can use the operator OR with a proximity operator.

Example

(water OR vinegar OR wine) w/5 (oil OR yogurt)

Phrases

You can search for phrases in two ways depending on how exact a match you want to find. You can find an exact phrase or a loose or approximate phrase.

To search for an exact phrase

To find documents that contain an exact phrase, including any stop words, spaces, and punctuation, enclose the phrase in braces: {oyster toadfish}.

Example

If you enter {oyster toadfish}, the search finds only documents that contain that exact phrase. In contrast, if you enter oyster toadfish, your search interprets that as "oyster AND toadfish" and finds documents containing both terms appearing separately or together.

 

Note

         Special characters are included in the search.

Example

Searching for {heart-attack} or {heart attack} returns different results because the dash (-) is considered in the search.

         Wildcards are searched as characters.

Example

Searching for {health care?} returns results such as: Who pays for health care?.

 

To search for a loose or approximate phrase

To find documents where your search terms appear adjacent to each other, enclose the terms in double quotation marks: "cell behaviour".

When you use double quotation marks:

         AND is not automatically inserted between terms.

Example

Entering "heart attack"returns different results than heart attack because the latter would be searched as heart AND attack, which would find documents that contained both words, even if they were far apart from each other. The search "heart attack" only finds documents where heart and attack are adjacent to each other.

         Punctuation is ignored.

Example

Entering "heart-attack" or "heart attack" returns the same results because the hyphen is ignored.

         Wildcards are searched as wildcards.

Example

Searching for "criminal* insan*" finds criminally insane and criminal insanity.

         Plurals are included.

Example

Searching for "heart attack" finds heart attack and heart attacks.

         Double quotation marks can also be used to search specifically for stop words, special characters, or punctuation marks, which would otherwise be ignored. To search for the double quotation character itself, place a backslash before it and enclose those 2 characters in double quotation marks:

Example

Searching for "\"" finds "

 

Wildcards

Use wildcard characters to search for variations of a word, making your search shorter and simpler. Multiple wildcard characters can be used.

 

Use this wildcard...

To do this...

Question Mark (?)

Replace a single character anywhere in a word. Use one question mark for each character you want to replace.

Example

AFFIL(nure?berg) finds Nuremberg, Nurenberg

Asterisk (*)

Replace multiple characters anywhere in a word.

Example

behav* finds behave, behavior, behaviour, behavioural, behaviourism, etc.

The asterisk replaces 0 or more characters, so it can be used to find any number or to indicate a character that may or may not be present.

Example

*tocopherol finds α-tocopherol, γ-tocopherol , δ-tocopherol, tocopherol, tocopherols, etc.

 

Note

Scopus finds variant spellings and matches Greek characters and their common American/British English variant spellings.

 

Field Restriction

 

You can search for a term in a specific field by entering the field name in your Advanced search:

field_name (search term)

 

Example

         The search TITLE-ABS-KEY(prion disease) returns documents where the terms appear in the title, keywords, or abstract.

         The search INDEXTERMS(prion disease)returns documents with the indexing term prion disease.

 

Note

         A limited number of field codes are available.

         Enter field codes in upper or lower case.

         Make sure to use the correct field code spelling, including hyphens.

         Not all documents contain all fields. Searching specific fields may prevent some articles from appearing in your search results.

 

@ = included in ALL fields search

 

Code

Description

Example

ALL

All Fields

Searches the following fields: ABS, AFFIL, ARTNUM, AUTH, AUTHCOLLAB, CHEM, CODEN, CONF, DOI, EDITOR, ISBN, ISSN, ISSUE, KEY, LANGUAGE, MANUFACTURER, PUBLISHER, PUBYEAR, REF, SEQBANK, SEQNUMBER, SRCTITLE, VOLUME, and TITLE.

ALL("heart attack") returns documents with "heart attack" in any of the fields listed.

ABS @

Abstract

A summary of the document.

ABS(dopamine)returns documents where "dopamine" is in the document abstract.

AF-ID @

Affiliation ID

A unique identification number assigned to organizations affiliated with Scopus authors.

Note

         You cannot search using just the affiliation name. For example entering AF-ID("Harvard Medical School") would not result in a match.

         Boolean operators cannot be used within the AF-ID field.

AF-ID("Harvard Medical School" 3000604) or AF-ID(3000604) returns documents written by authors affiliated with Harvard Medical School and variants of that name stored in Scopus.

 

AFFIL @

Affiliation

When searching the AFFIL field, you can specify if you want all of your search terms to be found in the same affiliation.

AFFIL is a combined field that searches the following author address fields:

         AFFILCITY

         AFFILCOUNTRY

         AFFILORG.

 

The difference between using the field by itself and qualifying terms within subfields is that unqualified terms match against all author affiliations in a particular document and qualifying by subfields matches a specific author affiliation within the document (see example).

         To find documents where your search terms occur in the same affiliation, use:
AFFIL(london and hospital)

or

AFFIL(AFFILCITY(london) AFFILORG(hospital))

         To find documents where both terms appear in a document's affiliation, but not necessarily in the same affiliation, use:
AFFIL (london) and AFFIL (hospital)

AFFILCITY

Affiliation city.

The city portion of an author address.

AFFILCITY(beijing) returns documents where "beijing" is the city in the author affiliation fields, such as:

Beijing Engineering Software Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing 100081, China

AFFILCOUNTRY

Affiliation country.

The country portion of an author address.

AFFILCOUNTRY(japan) returns documents where "japan" is the country in the author affiliation fields, such as:

Sojo University, Kumamoto 860-0082, Japan

AFFILORG

Affiliation organization.

The organization portion of an author address.

AFFILORG(toronto)returns documents where "toronto" is the organization in the author affiliation fields, such as:

Department of Mathematics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont. M5S 3G3, Canada

ARTNUM @

Article Number

A persistent identifier for a document used by a few publishers instead of, or in addition to, page numbers. Article numbers can be assigned at the time of electronic publication, so documents can be cited and searched for earlier in the publication process.

ARTNUM(1)returns documents with article numbers, such as:

         art. no. 1

         art. no. EGT-Nr 1.096

AU-ID @

Author Identifier Number

A unique identification number assigned to Scopus authors. For more information, see Scopus Author Identifier.

Note

         You cannot search the AU-ID field by entering an author name. For example entering AU-ID("Sato, A.") would not result in a match.

         Boolean operators cannot be used in the AU-ID field.

AU-ID("Sato, A." 100038831) or AU-ID(100038831) returns documents authored by Sato, A. and variants of that name stored in Scopus.

AUTHOR-NAME

Author Name

The name of an author. This field finds variants for a single author name.

 

AUTHOR-NAME is a combined field that searches the following author fields:

 

         AUTHLASTNAME

         AUTHFIRST

         AUTHSUFFIX

         AUTHNAME

The difference between using the field by itself and qualifying terms within subfields is that unqualified terms match against all authors of the document and qualifying by subfields matches a specific author in the document (see example).

 

Note

A comma can be used to separate last name and first name. The terms will automatically be qualified as AUTHLASTNAME and AUTHFIRST, respectively (see example).

 

AUTHOR-NAME(carrera, s) returns documents with "carrera in the last name and s" in the first name for a specific author, including:

         Carrera, F S

         Carrera, S

         Carrera, S R

         Carrera, Samuele

         Carrera Daz, S

         Carrera Justiz, S C

         Dueas Carrera, S

         Snchez Carrera, S

AUTH @

Author

A combined field that searches the following author fields:

         AUTHLASTNAME

         AUTHFIRST

AUTH(jr) returns documents with "jr" in the last name and first initial fields, including:

         Finn Jr., C.E.

         Jenkins, J.R.

AUTHFIRST

Author first initial

AUTHFIRST(j) returns documents with "j" in the author first initial field, including:

         Yu, J.

         Paradi, J.C.

         Handelman, C.J.

         Da Costa, J.C.S

AUTHLASTNAME

Author last name (family name)

AUTHLASTNAME(barney) returns documents with "barney" in the author last name field.

AUTHCOLLAB @

Collaboration Author

The name by which a group of authors is known.

AUTHCOLLAB("alpha group") returns documents with "alpha group" in the collaboration field.

AUTHKEY

Author Keywords. Keywords assigned to the document by the author.

AUTHKEY(stroke)returns documents where "stroke" is an author keyword.

CASREGNUMBER

CAS registry number

A numeric identifier assigned to a substance when it enters the CAS registry database.

CASREGNUMBER(1199-18-4)returns documents with "1199-18-4" in the CAS registry fields.

CHEM

Chemical

A combined field that searches the CHEMNAME and CASREGNUMBER fields.

CHEM(oxidopamine)returns documents with "oxidopamine" in the chemical name or CAS registry number fields.

CHEMNAME @

Chemical name

 

CHEMNAME(oxidopamine)returns documents with "oxidopamine" in the chemical name field.

CODEN @

A unique, code that identifies serial and nonserial publications.

CODEN(rnene) returns documents in the specified publication.

CONF @

Conference Information

A combined field that searches information about a conference or a conference proceeding in the CONFNAME, CONFSPONSORS, and CONFLOC fields.

Note

A search for an article includes conference papers.

CONF(electrical transmission) returns documents such as:

Proceedings of the Conference: Electrical Transmission in a New Age

 CONFLOC

Conference location

CONFLOC(Tokyo)returns documents such as:

Proceedings - Seventh International Conference on High Performance Computing and Grid in Asia Pacific Region, HPCAsia 2004; Tokyo;

CONFNAME

Conference name

CONFNAME(electrical transmission)returns documents such as:

Proceedings of the Conference: Electrical Transmission in a New Age

CONFSPONSORS

Conference sponsors

CONFSPONSORS(IEEE)returns documents such as:

         IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings

         2004 IEEE 6th Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing

DOCTYPE(XX)

PUBSTAGE()

Document Type

Possible values for XX are:

ar

Article

ab

Abstract Report

bk

Book

bz

Business Article

ch

Book Chapter

cp

Conference Paper

cr

Conference Review

ed

Editorial

er

Erratum

le

Letter

no

Note

pr

Press Release

re

Review

sh

Short Survey

PUBSTAGE

Possible values are:

aip

Article in Press

final

Final Document

(DOCTYPE(ar) OR PUBSTAGE(AIP))returns documents classified as articles or articles in press.

DOI @

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

A unique alphanumeric string created to identify a piece of intellectual property in an online environment.

DOI(10.1007/s00202-004-0261-3)returns the document with the matching DOI.

EDFIRST

Editor first name (given name)

EDFIRST(michael) returns documents with "michael" in the first name field.

EDITOR @

Editor

A combined field that searches the following fields: EDLASTNAME and EDFIRST.

EDITOR(smith) returns documents with "smith" in the editor last name and first initial fields.

EDLASTNAME

Editor last name (family name)

EDITOR(smith) returns documents with "smith" in the editor last name field.

EISSN

Electronic International Standard Serial Number

The ISSN of the electronic version of a serial publication.

EISSN(0-7623-106) or (07623106) returns documents containing "0762310669" as well as any other document containing single or multiple hyphens in any possible combination within "0-7623-106".

EXACTSRCTITLE

Exact Source Title

Searches the title of the journal, book, conference proceeding, or report in which the document was published.

Exact source title searches do not find variations of your search termsonly sources that contain the exact words in your search are returned.

EXACTSRCTITLE(behavior)returns documents published in the source "Physiology and Behavior", but not documents in the source "Addictive Behaviors".

FIRSTAUTH

First Author

The first author listed for a document.

FIRSTAUTH(Liming, T) returns documents with authors listed as 'Liming, T., Mingan, S., Jiangzhong, Y., Zhenhua, T.'  The search does not return a document with authors listed as 'Mingan, S., Jiangzhong, Y., Liming, T., Zhenhua, T.', since Liming T. is not the first author in the author list.

FUND-SPONSOR

Funding sponsor.

FUND-SPONSOR(National Aeronautics and Space Administration) returns documents with National Aeronautics and Space Administration mentioned as the sponsor name in the acknowledgements section of the article.

FUND-ACR

Funding sponsor acronym.

FUND-ACR(NASA) returns documents with NASA mentioned as the sponsor acronym in the acknowledgements section of the article.

FUND-NO

Funding grant number.

FUND-NO(CDA-8619893) returns documents with CDA-8619893 mentioned as the grant number in the acknowledgements section of the article.

ISBN @

International Standard Book Number

A unique identification number assigned to all books.

ISBN(9780123456789)returns documents containing "9780123456789" as well as any other document containing single or multiple hyphens in any possible combination within "978-0-123-45678-9".

ISSN @

International Standard Serial Number

A unique identification number assigned to all serial publications.

ISSN(0959-8278) or (09598278) returns documents containing "09598278" as well as any other document containing single or multiple hyphens in any possible combination within "0959-8278".

Searching on the ISSN field also searches the ISSNP and EISSN fields.

ISSNP

Print International Standard Serial Number

The ISSN of the print version of a serial publication.

ISSNP(0-7623-106) or (07623106) returns documents containing "0762310669" as well as any other document containing single or multiple hyphens in any possible combination within "0-7623-106".

ISSUE

Issue

Identifier for a serial publication.

ISSUE(summer)returns documents with an issue identifier of "summer".

KEY @

Keywords

A combined field that searches the AUTHKEY, INDEXTERMS, TRADENAME, and CHEMNAME fields.

KEY(oscillator)returns documents where "oscillator" is a keyword.

LANGUAGE @

Language

The language in which the original document was written.

LANGUAGE(french)returns documents originally written in French.

MANUFACTURER

Manufacturer

 

MANUFACTURER(sigma)returns documents with "sigma" in the keywords fields.

OPENACCESS

Open Access

 

OPENACCESS(1)returns Open Access content indexed in Scopus.

OPENACCESS(0)returns subscription-based content indexed in Scopus.

PAGEFIRST

First page

PAGEFIRST(9)returns documents with page numbers, such as:

         9

         9-16

PAGELAST

Last page

PAGELAST(9)returns documents with page numbers, such as:

         9

         9-16

PAGES

Pages

A combination field that searches the PAGEFIRST and PAGELAST fields.

PAGES(1-2)returns documents with a page number range of "1-2".

PAGES(9)returns documents with page numbers, such as:

         1-9

         9

         9-16

PMID

PubMed Identifier

A unique identifier for all Medline documents.

PMID(10676951)returns documents that have a PubMed Identifier of "10676951".

PUBLISHER @

Publisher

A text field indicating the name of the publisher.

PUBLISHER(Elsevier) returns documents published by "Elsevier".

PUBYEAR

Year of Publication

A numeric field indicating the year of publication.

Note

You can indicate the year using the following operators:

         < - Before

         > - After

         = - Equal to

You can continue to use the older notation for the above 3 operators (BEF, AFT, and IS, respectively) in numeric fields; saved searches and alerts will continue to work as before.

         PUBYEAR > 1994 returns documents with a publication year after 1994.

         PUBYEAR < 1994 returns documents with a publication year before 1994.

         PUBYEAR = 1994 returns documents with a publication year of 1994.

REF @

References

When searching the REF field, you can specify if you want all of your search terms to be found in the same reference.

REF is a combined field that searches:

         REFAUTH

         REFTITLE

         REFSRCTITLE

         REFPUBYEAR

         REFPAGE

Note

REF search results include the URL of a website where applicable.

         To find documents where your search terms occur in the same reference, use:
REF(darwin 1859)

         To find documents where both terms appear in a document's references, but not necessarily in the same reference, use:
REF(darwin) and REF(1859)

REFAUTH

 

Reference authors.

REFAUTH is a combined field that searches:

         REFAUTHLASTNAME

         REFAUTHFIRST

 

 

REFAUTH(Wu)returns documents with "Wu" in their reference author fields.

REFTITLE

 

Reference title

REFTITLE(dioxin)returns documents with "dioxin" in their reference title.

REFSRCTITLE

 

Reference source title

REFSRCTITLE(neuropharmacology) returns documents where "neuropharmacology" is in the source title of a reference.

REFPUBYEAR

 

Reference year

A numeric field indicating the year of publication of a document reference.

Note

You can indicate the year using the IS operator.

REFPUBYEAR IS 1994 returns documents with references published in 1994.

REFARTNUM

 

Article Number

A persistent identifier for a document used by a few publishers instead of, or in addition to, page numbers. Article numbers can be assigned at the time of electronic publication, so documents can be cited and searched for earlier in the publication process.

REFARTNUM(1)returns documents where "1" is in the article number of a document reference, such as:

         art. no. 1

         rt. no. EGT-Nr 1.096

REFPAGE

 

Reference page numbers

REFPAGE(75)returns documents where "75" is in the page numbering of a document reference, such as:

         pp. 71-75

         75 pp.

 

REFPAGEFIRST

First Page

REFPAGEFIRST(5)returns documents where "5" is in the page numbering of a document reference, such as:

         pp. 854-879

         pp. 5-7

SEQBANK

Sequence Bank

The name of the sequence bank that lists a nucleotide or amino acid sequence that is defined or mentioned in a document.

SEQBANK(GenBank)returns documents with "GenBank" in the keywords field.

SEQNUMBER

Sequence Bank Accession Number

The number assigned to an amino acid or nucleotide sequence defined or mentioned in a document.

SEQNUMBER(AB013289)returns documents with "AB013289" in the keywords field.

SRCTITLE @

Source Title

The title of the journal, book, conference proceeding, or report in which the document was published.

SRCTITLE(pacific)returns documents with "pacific" in the source title, such as:

         Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health

         Pacific Conservation Biology

         1989 Asia-Pacific Conference

SRCTYPE (XX)

Source Type

Possible values for XX are:

j

Journal

b

Book

k

Book Series

p

Conference Proceeding

r

Report

d

Trade Publication

SRCTYPE(j)returns documents from journal sources.

SUBJAREA(XX)

Subject Area

Possible values for XX are:

AGRI

Agricultural and Biological Sciences

ARTS

Arts and Humanities

BIOC

Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

BUSI

Business, Management and Accounting

CENG

Chemical Engineering

CHEM

Chemistry

COMP

Computer Science

DECI

Decision Sciences

DENT

Dentistry

EART

Earth and Planetary Sciences

ECON

Economics, Econometrics and Finance

ENER

Energy

ENGI

Engineering

ENVI

Environmental Science

HEAL

Health Professions

IMMU

Immunology and Microbiology

MATE

Materials Science

MATH

Mathematics

MEDI

Medicine

NEUR

Neuroscience

NURS

Nursing

PHAR

Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics

PHYS

Physics and Astronomy

PSYC

Psychology

SOCI

Social Sciences

VETE

Veterinary

MULT

Multidisciplinary

SUBJAREA(CHEM)returns documents classified under the subject area Chemistry.

TITLE @

Article Title

The title of an article.

TITLE("neuropsychological evidence") returns documents with the phrase "neuropsychological evidence" in their title.

TITLE-ABS-KEY

A combined field that searches abstracts, keywords, and article titles.

TITLE-ABS-KEY("heart attack") returns documents with "heart attack" in their abstracts, article titles, or keyword fields.

TITLE-ABS-KEY-AUTH

A combined field that searches abstracts, article titles, keywords, and author names.

TITLE-ABS-KEY-AUTH(heart attack)returns documents with "heart attack" in their abstracts, article titles, keywords, or author name fields.

Note

You can search on the TITLE-ABS-KEY-AUTH field in a Document search.

TRADENAME

A name used to identify a commercial product or service.

TRADENAME(morbilvax) returns documents with "morbilvax" in the keywords fields.

VOLUME

Volume

Identifier for a serial publication.

VOLUME(34) returns documents with a volume number of 34.

 

WEBSITE

The URL of a website cited in the reference.

WEBSITE (bbc.co.uk) finds documents with this URL in the references.