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Publication Tracking : Searching for a Group of Authors in Scopus

Overview

This page gives tips on how to search for a group of authors in Scopus. Click here to access this information as a downloadable PDF.

Click here to access a PDF containing search templates and examples of searching for a group of authors in Scopus.

Important note:

These searches will only work in the Advanced Document Search in Scopus. To access the Advanced Document Search:

1. Click the Documents tab above the Scopus search bar.

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

2. Click "Advanced Document Search" just below the Scopus search bar. This will take you to the advanced document search page, where you can run your search.

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

Creating Your Search

1. Searching for Publications by Any Authors in a Group

To search for publications authored by any authors within a specific group (i.e. search for multiple authors at once), you would use the same techniques outlined in the "Searching for an Individual Author" page, and you would combine each author search string using OR. So, for example, if you wanted to search for all publications authored by John E. Doe, Jane M. Example, and Marty B. Test, your search would look something like this:

 

AUTH("Doe, J.E.") OR AUTH("Example, J.M.") OR AUTH("Test, M.B.")

 

This search is going to retrieve any publications by John E. Doe, Jane M. Example, and Marty B. Test.

If all of the authors are from UW-Madison you can also add an affiliation string into your search using AND. Make sure to put extra parenthesis around your author string, like so:

 

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

 

This will retrieve publications by these authors that have Wisconsin listed as their affiliation. You can also search for affiliation by using Scopus' affiliation ID. You can find affiliation IDs by using the Affiliation search tab in Scopus. Once you have an affiliation ID, you can either use it in place of (less results) or combined with (more results) your previous affiliation search. If you wanted to combine it, you would add it to your affiliation search string by using OR and using the AF-ID field tag. Make sure to add extra parentheses around your new affiliation search string, like so:

 

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

 

Finally, you can also limit your results by date, just like we did in the Individual Author Search, like so:

 

(AUTH("Doe, J.E.") OR AUTH("Example, J.M.") OR AUTH("Test, M.B.")) AND AFFIL(wisconsin OR madison OR UW OR wi OR wisc) AND PUBDATETXT("April 2021")

 

This will retrieve publications by these authors who have a Wisconsin affiliation and that have been published in April 2021.

 

2. Searching for Publications Coauthored by Authors in a Group

To search for publications coauthored by a group of authors, you will instead combine your author search strings by using AND. So, for example, if you wanted to search for publications co-authored by John E. Doe, Jane M. Example, and Marty B. Test, your search would look something like this:

 

AUTH("Doe, J.E.") AND AUTH("Example, J.M.") AND AUTH("Test, M.B.")

 

This search will only retrieve publications that have ALL of these people listed as the authors. Just like in our previous example, you can limit your results by affiliation, like so:

 

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

 

And add affiliation ID, like so:

 

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

 

And by date and affiliation, like so:

 

(AUTH("Doe, J.E.") AND AUTH("Example, J.M.") AND AUTH("Test, M.B.")) AND AFFIL(wisconsin OR madison OR UW OR wi OR wisc) AND PUBDATETXT("April 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").