Students embarking on research nowadays may be overwhelmed by the vast amount of research literature that is available: peer-reviewed journals, books and book series, Open Access articles, dissertations and theses, conference proceedings and other scientific documents. Common questions that students have are: where should I start? How do I find information that is relevant to my research topic? Can I rely on this source?
Scopus aggregates and organises a wealth of research output from around the world, across a wide range of disciplines in a single location, allowing users to search for and evaluate research literature with ease.
Why Scopus?
Scopus is one of the world’s largest and most prominent databases of abstracts and citations for research literature. Multidisciplinary in nature, it delivers a comprehensive coverage of the world’s research output in a wide range of research fields: health sciences, life sciences, physical sciences and social sciences. To date, the database includes over 75 million abstract and index records from over 23,000 peer-reviewed journals, more than 190,000 books, and other sources.
To ensure that it remains balanced in its content representation, Scopus is curated by an international and independent board of subject matter experts. In addition, its content is reviewed annually to maintain the database’s quality standards.
Navigating through over 75 million records on Scopus is made simple even for the most novice users with its intuitive search tools. Furthermore, Scopus offers smart features that allow seasoned researchers to track and visualise critical research from around the world.
Accessing Scopus
To access Scopus, click on the List of Databases on the Library Portal.
Using Scopus
There are three ways to search the database. The default Documents Search uses topic keywords to search. Other than Documents Search, users can also use Authors Search, Affiliations Search and Advanced Search.
Document search
The author search allows users to search by authors of peer-reviewed literature. This feature is able to retrieve information specific to the authors: research impact, publishing contributions, co-authors, their fields of study, and much more.
The affiliations search retrieves data on research institutions: their publishing output, research focus, a breakdown of collaborations with other institutions, and others.
To learn more about each search feature, refer to the Search tips which are easily accessible (see circled below).
Search tips
Scopus search results are automatically sorted by date, with the newest results displayed first. Results can also be re-arranged based on: number of citations, relevance, author’s name and source title.
Additional options to help refine the search results can be found on the left-hand side of the page.
Refining search results
Document Details
Access detailed information on a document by clicking on the document title. Here, you are able to view an abstract of the document, its citation information (author, source title, etc.), indexed keywords and list of references. The document’s list of references, as well as works that cite the document, may be of interest to users who are searching for additional resources on similar topics.
List of references and keywords
Use the download button to check if the full-text is available at NIE Library. Make sure to download and install the web extension on your browser in order to take advantage of this nifty function on Scopus. For full-text articles that are not available at NIE Library, users can use our Document Delivery Service to submit a request for the article.
Checking for full-text via the download function
Elevate your research by accessing Scopus here.
For feedback, please contact NIE Library at libser@nie.edu.sg.