Scopus is a citation index: the article records include lists of citing articles. This means that, if you find an article of interest, you can look at subsequent articles that have cited it. You can find important articles on a topic, and follow research paths.

Scopus is a multi-subject database, but does cover the Health Sciences - medicine, dentistry, nursing, veterinary science, and the health professions - as well as the life sciences, physical sciences, and social sciences & humanities. 

CSU Library also subscribes to the Web of Science Core Collection, which is an alternative citation index.

• The default is to Document Search, which is similar to Advanced Search in other databases. In Scopus, the Advanced Search screen relies on using field codes. You can add lines of search.

• The default is to search in Title, Abstract, and Keywords. This is useful, but can be changed.

• The default is to a keyword search so if you want to search for a phrase, enclose it in double quotation marks.

• In Scopus, there are some limiters that can be used as part of a search, but many more that can be applied to a set of results. In fact, you can choose to Limit to, or Exclude, certain results.

• You can do a Proximity Search: the proximity operator is W/n, where n is the number of words you specify. Eg. "speech therapy" W/3 australia*.

• You can do as much searching as you like, and return to the results later. Your previous searches appear in the Search history panel beneath the search panel. 

• In your results, if there is no link to the full-text of an article, click on the button to search for the full article via Primo Search.

• If you wish to save searches or set up search alerts, you need to register with Elsevier. Here's how:

1. At the top right of screen, click on Register.
2. Follow the instructions and prompts to register.
3. Your email address will be your username. Make sure you remember your password for future use!

When you get a results list in Scopus, one of the columns that displays is the Cited by. This shows the number of articles (indexed in Scopus) that have cited the article. Clicking on the number will display brief records of those citing articles.

The results list will, by default, be sorted by Relevance. You can use the drop-down menu to change the sort order to Cited by (highest) or Cited by (lowest).

You can use this feature of Scopus to:

• follow a research path forwards and find related articles
• find seminal articles on a topic.

In the screen-shot below, the search was for

"speech therapy" OR "speech pathology" OR "speech language pathology"
[AND] autism
[in Title, Abstract, Keywords]

and the results have been sorted by Cited by (highest).

• Scopus Support Center
   
• Scopus Tutorials.

For individual help with using Scopus, please contact the Library or use the Ask a Librarian forum if there is one for your subject.