ACCESSING SCOPUS AND OTHER DATABASES FOR YOUR SUBJECT AREA

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Suzan Jackson
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1 SCOPUS Scopus is a database which offers a comprehensive overview of international research in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and to a lesser extent, the arts and humanities. Updated daily, Scopus includes abstracts and cited references of over 20,000 peer-reviewed titles from more than 5,000 international publishers. This guide will show you how to search Scopus, how to access articles, and how to , print or save selected items. ACCESSING SCOPUS AND OTHER DATABASES FOR YOUR SUBJECT AREA Locate is the gateway to all of the library s resources, including databases. Locate can be accessed directly at To find out which databases are useful in your subject area: Go to Locate and click on Subject Resources. Select your subject from the list of subject areas. Click on the Databases button. To link to a database, click on View It, then click on Open source in a new window. Log in with your Coventry University username and password SEARCHING SCOPUS See the example search screen on the next page which illustrates the following search tips. Enter search terms in the search boxes. You can add additional search boxes by clicking on Add search field. You can enter single words or phrases. To search for an exact phrase, place it inside quotation marks (eg, water pollution ). You can broaden your search by using truncation. The truncation symbol on the Scopus database is the asterisk (*). The truncation symbol allows you to search for all the various endings of a word. For example, pollut* will find pollute, pollutes, polluted, pollution, polluting, pollutant. Be careful which words you truncate and where you truncate them. Gene* will find articles containing gene, genes, genetic, genetics, genetically and geneticist but will also find over a million records containing words such as 'general' or generic. The search operator AND will automatically be selected from the drop-down menu to the left of the second search box. This ensures that only records containing all of the search terms will be found. You can change the search operator to AND NOT which will find records that contain the search term in the first search box but not the second.

2 Expand your search by using synonyms words or phrases that have the same or a similar meaning to your search term. Type or between your synonyms. Use speech marks to search for an exact phrase Type 'or' between synonyms to expand your search Sometimes it may be useful to use truncation Select the required search operator from the drop down menu Click here to add more search boxes REFINING YOUR SEARCH If your search returns a large number of results, you can refine it by adding another search term in the Search within results box which is located in the top left hand corner of the screen. You can also refine your search results using the categories at the side of the page. This allows you to limit your results by Source (Journal) Title, Author Name, Year, Document Type, Subject Area, etc. or to exclude any of these categories from your results. Language is a useful category as this can be used to limit your search results to a particular language. Another useful category is Document Type. This can be used to limit your results to journal articles, conference papers, etc.

3 You can refine your search results using the Search within results box You can use the categories on the left hand side of the page to refine your search VIEWING SCOPUS RESULTS Your search will return a list of brief records. The records are arranged chronologically with the most recent records appearing at the beginning of your results list. The results can be arranged differently, for example by relevance, by using the Sort options immediately above and to the right of your results. To see the abstract (a short summary) of an article, click on the Show Abstract link. The Show Abstract link will not be visible until you move your cursor over the record. To see the full record of an article, click on the article title.

4 ACCESSING THE FULL TEXT To see if an item is available in the Library, click on Locate it. Locate it will try to locate the full-text of the item, in print and/or electronically. If the full-text is available online you can follow a link directly to it by clicking on the full text link. If you are off campus, the login instructions are given below the full text link. If the full text isn t available, search Locate for the journal title to see if the print version of the journal is available. If we don t stock the item either in print or electronically, you can order the article through the Library s Document Delivery service. More information about this service can be found here CREATING A LIST OF RECORDS Records that are of interest to you can be selected by ticking the box to the left of the record, clicking on More, then clicking on Add to My List. When you have finished searching and adding records to your list, click on My List at the top of the page. You will see a list of the records that you have selected. 4. When you have finished searching, click on My List 1. Tick the box to select a record 2. Click on More 3. Click on Add to My List

5 You can print out your selected records, or them to yourself. To do this, select the records again then select print or from the More drop-down menu. When you exit the Scopus database, you will lose your searches and any lists of records that you have created, but you can set up your own personal account. This is free of charge. Once you've set up an account you can save your search results and lists so they are still there the next time you log in. To use these functions you will need to register with Scopus to obtain a Scopus username and password. To register, click on the Register icon in the top right hand corner of the screen and follow the online instructions. To access your saved searches, lists or alerts click on My Scopus at the top of the page. Judy Thompson (Subject Librarian) j.thompson@coventry.ac.uk Telephone: April 2015

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