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University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Scopus: Document Search

Learn how to search for articles, organize your results, and personalize your experience in Scopus.

Document Search

Document Search is the default search page in Scopus. Select from a variety of search fields including article title, abstract, keyword, author name, publication date, and references. Scopus searches the bibliographic record, not the full-text of documents. 

Watch our tutorial below for more information:

Author Search

Scopus allows users to search by name or ORCID to find the profile of a known author. Watch our tutorial below to learn how to conduct an author search:

Search Tips

  • Choose specific terms that are closely related to your research topic, including terms you might use when discussing your topic with a colleague such as jargon, synonyms, and abbreviations.
  • Scopus searches are not case sensitive.
  • Use Boolean operators to limit, broaden, or eliminate terms from your search: 
    • AND limits search results, finding articles with both terms
    • OR broadens results, finding articles with either term
    • NOT eliminates terms from the results, finding articles with one term but not the other
  • Use truncation and wildcards to broaden your search: 
    • Add an asterisk (*) to replace multiple characters in a word (eg. biol* returns biology, biologist)
    • Add a question mark (?) to replace a single character (eg. disrupt?rs for disrupters and disruptors)
  • Use proximity operators to narrow your search: 
    • PRE/# means "precedes by," meaning your first term must precede the second by # number of terms. 
    • W# means "within," meaning your search terms must be within # number of terms of each other. 
  • Use {brackets} to search for an exact phrase, and quotation marks to search for approximate phrases.