How do I work with document search results?

You can save a search to run again in a future session.

After running a search, select 'Save' to save the search parameters.

• You must be signed in to save a search.
• You can save up to 200 searches.

You can create an email alert to be notified when Scopus publishes new documents that fall within your search parameters. For more information about how alerts are used, see How are Alerts used in Scopus?

1. Select 'Set search alert'.

   • You must be signed into Scopus to create a saved search or to create an alert.
   • There is no limit on the number of alerts you can create.
   • Non-Scopus documents (abstracts available on platforms external to Scopus) and citations derived from Scopus references are not included in Search alerts.
2. Provide a name for the alert, email address(es), and the frequency of the alert.
3. Select 'Set search alert'.

1. Select 'Add search field'.
2. From the Search within drop-down, select 'All'.
3. Enter your terms in the Search documents field.
   Note: select the 'Advanced query' toggle to work with complex queries.
4. Select 'Search'.

Our guidance: For best performance, please keep the total number of Limit to and Exclude filters (combined) to 15 or fewer (10 or fewer is recommended for very large, complex queries). If you exceed these limits, we cannot guarantee the following actions will complete successfully:

1. Running a search
2. Running a search and then viewing Citation overview for the results
3. Running a search and then exporting the results

How to apply filters

1. Select the checkboxes for the filters you want.
2. Select Limit to or Exclude.
3. Select Apply change.

To remove a filter

1. Deselect the filter and select Apply change.

Select 'Export filter counts' to export the search value numbers to a CSV file.

Scopus provides an analysis of your search results. Select 'Analyze results' to open the Analyze search results page.

The analysis shows you the documents in your search results by:

• Year
• Per year by source
• Author
• Affiliation
• Country/territory
• Document type
• Subject area
• Source type
• Funding sponsor

For detailed information about the Analyze search results function, see How do I use the Analyze search results function?

• To select single or multiple search results items, select the corresponding checkbox next to a results list item.
• To select All search results items on a page, tick the 'All' checkbox. All search results items for a page are selected.

You can export selected items to a file or to a reference management tool such as Mendeley:

• Scopus results lists including all search results, My lists, and Saved Lists
• Documents
• Document references

To export your documents, select the documents from your search results and select ‘Export’ and follow the prompts. For more information about exporting documents, see How do I export documents from Scopus?

The Citation overview allows you to track and analyze citation metrics for a specific publication, author, or a group of publications/authors.

1. Select the documents you want to include, up to 10,000 documents.
2. Select 'Citation overview'.

For more information about citation overviews How do I create a Citation overview?.

For more information about adding a document to a list, see How do I add a document to a list?

To view a list of documents that have cited selected documents from your search results:

1. Select the document(s) for which you want to see citing documents.
2. Select 'View cited by'. A result listing of documents which site the selected documents opens.

Tip: The Cited by column shows the number of times a document has been cited by other documents in Scopus. Select the number to view the documents.

You can view the references cited by the documents in your search results list. From the References list, you can output the references, view them on Scopus (if available), and view how many times they have been cited on Scopus.

1. Select the document(s) (up to 2,000) whose references you want to view.
2. Select 'View references'. A results list opens listing the documents references.

Select 'Show all abstracts' to display or hide the abstracts in your search results.

Search results are sorted by date, most recent first and appears as Date(Newest):

• Documents with unknown publication dates are treated as the oldest articles
• Sorting applies to the entire set of results, not just the 2,000 displayed at the time
• The sorting option you choose will remain selected for future, signed in sessions, until you change it

Select a sort parameter from the Sort on drop down: 

• Date (newest):  Results are sorted in descending order of publication date, most recent first  
• Date (oldest):  Results are sorted in ascending order of publication date, oldest first  
• Cited by (highest):  Results are sorted on the highest number of times cited by other articles  
• Cited by (lowest):  Results are sorted on the lowest number of times cited by other articles  
• Relevance:  Results are sorted according to the best match for your search terms.  To determine relevance, Scopus uses a sophisticated model based on proven concepts from the science of Information Retrieval and experience with Web, data, and enterprise searching. For more information see What does Relevance mean in Scopus?  
• First Author (A-Z or Z-A):  Results are sorted by the first publishing author in alphabetical ascending or descending  order  
• Source Title (A-Z or Z-A):  Results are sorted alphabetically on the journal name, book title, or other source in which the document was published in ascending or descending order. Documents that do not have a source title appear at the end of the list when sorted in ascending order or at the beginning of the list when sorted in descending order. 

• To select single or multiple search results items, select the corresponding checkbox next to a results list item.
• To select All search results items on a page, tick the 'All' checkbox. All search results items for a page are selected.

Select 'Show all abstracts' to display or hide the abstracts in your search results.

Search results are sorted by date, most recent first and appears as Date(Newest):

• Documents with unknown publication dates are treated as the oldest articles
• Sorting applies to the entire set of results, not just the 2,000 displayed at the time
• The sorting option you choose will remain selected for future, signed in sessions, until you change it

Select a sort parameter from the Sort on drop down:

• Date (newest): Results are sorted in descending order of publication date, most recent first
• Date (oldest): Results are sorted in ascending order of publication date, oldest first
• First Author (A-Z or Z-A): Results are sorted by the first publishing author in alphabetical  ascending or descending order
• Repository (A-Z or Z-A): Results are sorted alphabetically in ascending or descending order by preprint repository

• Relevance: Results are sorted according to the best match for your search terms.  For more information see What does Relevance mean in Scopus?