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Publication Tracking : Searching for an Individual Author in Scopus

Overview

This page gives tips on how to search for an individual author in Scopus using Scopus' Author Search or Scopus' Document Search. Click here to access this information as a downloadable PDF.

Click here to access a PDF containing search templates and examples of searching for an individual author in Scopus.

Author Search

This box gives tips for using Scopus' Author Search when searching for publications by an individual author.

1. Search by Author with (Optional) Affiliation

To search for an individual author, you can use Scopus's Author Search. When you access Scopus, click the "Authors" tab just above the search bar. Then enter in the last name and first name (or first initial) of the author into the respective search bars. If desired, you can also add an affiliation to your search, by clicking "Add Affiliation" and entering the affiliation name into the search bar. Once done, click "Search."

 

Screenshot of Scopus Author Search tab, with instructions to click the Authors tab

 

This will bring you to a results page containing authors that match your search. You can click the number under the "documents" column to access a results page of all of the author's publications that have been indexed into Scopus.

 

Results page for author search in Scopus for "John Doe." An arrow points to the number in the Documents column, with instructions to click the number to go to results page with all of the author's publications

 

If the author has 2 or more publications indexed in Scopus, they will likely have a Scopus author profile. To access this profile, click the name of the author in the results page.

 

Screenshot of Scopus author results page, with instructions to click the author name to go to the author's scopus profile

 

This will take you to the author's Scopus author profile, which contains the author's Scopus ID, metrics, and, if you scroll down on the page, a list of their publications indexed in Scopus.

 

2. Search by ORCID ID

You can also search for authors by ORCID ID in Scopus. ORCID IDs are like a social security number for researchers. If consistently included in publications and updated by the researcher, they can solve the issue of name ambiguity when searching for publications. For more information on ORCID IDs, visit the ORCID ID research guide page.

To search for an author by ORCID ID, click the "Authors" tab just above the search bar in Scopus. Click the dropdown next to "Search using" and select "ORCID."

 

Screenshot of Scopus author search by ORCID. Instructions to click the "search using" dropdown, and select ORCID.

 

You can then enter the author's ORCID into the search bar, and click Search.

Document Search

This box gives tips for using Scopus' Document Search when searching for publications by an individual author.

1. Search by Author

In addition to Scopus' author search, you can search for authors using the advanced document search. Click the Documents tab above the Scopus search bar.

 

Screenshot of Scopus document search, with instructions to click the Documents tab

Click "Advanced Document Search" just below the Scopus search bar. This will take you to the advanced document search page.

 

Screenshot of Scopus document search, with instructions to click advanced document search

 

This will take you to the advanced document search, where you can enter your search string.

You have a couple of options you can use when constructing your author search string. You can either search by a name with a first and middle initial, or you can search for just a name with the first initial. Searching for an author with their first and middle initial is going to retrieve more relevant results; however, you may miss relevant publications where the author does not provide their middle initial. On the other hand, if you only search by last name and first initial, you will retrieve more irrelevant results, as Scopus will automatically search for middle name variants (e.g. a search of Doe, J. is going to retrieve articles by Doe, J.E., Doe, J.L. etc.).

For the below search we used both the first and middle initials. You will also be using the AUTH() field tag, and will enclose the name in quotation marks, just like in the search below:

 

AUTH("Doe, J.E.")

 

This search will retrieve any articles that either have J.E. Doe in the author field.

 

2. Search by ORCID

You can also use the advanced document search to search for authors by their ORCID ID. You can choose to either search for the ORCID ID by itself, or you can combine the ID with your current search using the ORCID() field tag, like so:

 

(AUTH("Doe, J.E.") OR ORCID(0000-0003-0799-4776))

 

This will retrieve publications associated with J.E. Doe or the specified ORCID ID.

 

3. Search by Scopus ID

You can also use the advanced document search to search for authors using their Scopus ID. Scopus IDs are identifiers for authors in Scopus. An author must have at least 2 publications to receive a Scopus ID. For more information on Scopus IDs, see the Scopus ID Research Guide page.

To search by an author's Scopus ID, you will use the the AU-ID() field tag. You can either search for the Scopus ID by itself, or you can combine it with your previous author search string using OR, like so:

 

(AUTH("Doe, J.E.") OR ORCID(0000-0003-0799-4776) OR AU-ID(12345678910))

 

This search will retrieve all publications associated with J.E. Doe, the specified ORCID ID, or the specified Scopus ID.

 

4. Limit by Affiliation

You can further limit your results by including an author's affiliation information in your search. However, just like author names, affiliations are subject to name ambiguity. So, for example, the University of Wisconsin-Madison can be listed as the University of Wisconsin-Madison, UW, UW-Madison, University of Wisconsin, etc. To correct for this, you will want to include name variations in your affiliation search string by using OR.You will also be adding the affiliation field tag AFFIL().

You will then combine this with your author search by using AND. So your search would look something like this:

 

AUTH("Doe, J.E.") AND AFFIL(wisconsin OR madison OR UW OR wi OR wisc)

 

An additional way to limit by affiliation is to use an affiliation ID. Affiliation IDs are assigned to affiliations in Scopus. They can be found by using the Affiliation search tab in Scopus. Affiliation IDs can be used in place of or can be combined with your affiliation keyword search. If you wanted to combine the affiliation ID with your current search, you would add it to your affiliation search by using OR, and using the AF-ID() field tag like so:

 

AUTH("Doe, J.E.") AND (AFFIL(wisconsin OR madison OR UW OR wi OR wisc) OR AF-ID(60032179))

 

 

5. Limit by Date

Finally, you can also limit your search by date. To do this you would use the PUBDATETXT() field tag and add it to your search using AND, like so:

 

(AUTH("Doe, J.E.") OR ORCID(0000-0003-0799-4776) OR AU-ID(12345678910)) AND AFFIL(wisconsin OR madison OR UW OR wi OR wisc) AND PUBDATETXT("April 2021")

 

This search will retrieve all publications associated with J.E. Doe, the specified ORCID ID, or the specified Scopus ID with a Wisconsin affiliation and that was published in April 2021.

 

Helpful Tip:

Date Range (Year)

You can also search by year ranges in Scopus. For example, if you wanted to retrieve publications by J.E. Doe published between 2017 and 2021, you would search:

AUTH("Doe, J.E.) AND (PUBYEAR > 2016 AND PUBYEAR < 2021)

What are Scopus IDs and Author Profiles?

Scopus IDs are unique numbers assigned to authors who have at least 2 publications indexed in Scopus. Just like ORCID IDs, Scopus IDs are meant to disambiguate authors, as a search of an author's Scopus ID will retrieve any publications associated with that ID in Scopus.

Each Scopus ID is associated with an Author Profile, which, among other things, contains the author's Scopus ID, metrics, and a list of the author's publications indexed in Scopus.

Scopus IDs and Author Profiles (and the assignment of publications to them) are automatically generated by an algorithm in Scopus. While this function is helpful, it can be subject to error. For example, single authors may have multiple IDs (and, in consequence, Author Profiles), or authors may have incorrect publications assigned to their Scopus ID. For this reason, it is important for authors to occasionally review and, when needed, request changes to their Scopus Author Profile.

For more information on Scopus IDs, see the Scopus Author Profile Research Guide page.

How Do I Interpret These Searches?

Boolean Operators (AND and OR)

OR is used to combine synonyms together. For example, a search of parent OR guardian is going to retrieve publications that have the word parent, the word guardian, or both the words parent and guardian in them.

AND is used to combine concepts together. For example, a search of parent AND guardian is going to retrieve publications that have BOTH the words parent and guardian in them. If a publication has the word parent, and not the word guardian, your search will not retrieve that publication.

 

Visualization of how Boolean works In the example on the left, I’m using OR to combine two synonyms. This is helpful when your are searching for a concept and you want to combine all keywords related to that concept. parent OR guardian retrieves results that either contain the term parent or guardian, or both the terms parent and guardian The example on the right shows what happens when you combine search terms using the Boolean operator AND. Using AND is most effective when combining different concepts. For example, parent AND guardian only retrieves results that contain BOTH the terms parent and guardian. So, in this example, if an article has the term parent but not the term guardian, your search will not retrieve the article. While using AND retrieves less results than using the Boolean Operator OR.

Parentheses ( )

Parentheses are used in much the same way you would use them in a math equation, where OR is an addition symbol and AND is a multiplication symbol. A search of (cat OR feline) AND (dog OR canine) is going to retrieve publications that have both the words cat and dog, or cat and canine, or feline and dog, or feline and canine in them.

Field Tags

These tell Scopus where to search in the article for your terms.

  • AUTH() searches the author field
  • ORCID() searches by ORCID ID
  • AU-ID() searches by an author's Scopus ID
  • AFFIL() searches the affiliation field
  • AF-ID() searches by affiliation ID
  • PUBDATETXT() searches the publication date field (note: when searching by year, use PUBYEAR())

Quotation Marks " "

These tell Scopus to search for two or more words as a loose, intact phrase. So, for example, searching "young adult" is going to search for that intact phrase, whereas searching young adult, without quotation marks, will look for articles that have young and adult anywhere in the article, regardless of how apart those two words might be in the article (e.g., it could retrieve an article that says, "The young polar bear was now an adult").