Q. How can I use the database Scopus to find relevant papers and citations?

Scopus contains details of articles in quality journals, including details of how many, and which, more recent articles have cited any particular article. While Scopus doesn't contain the full text of any article, you can link out to other databases to get full text, where available. The database Web of Science has similar functionality, though there are differences between the databases. There is overlap in journal coverage, but some journals are only included in one of these databases. For a structured or systematic literature review you should try both databases to decide which is most relevant to your research. 

Once you have opened Scopus from the Databases A-Z on the Library website you can search for specific papers that you are already aware of, search by topic/keyword, or search by author.

See the linked Panopto video for a demonstration of the instructions below.

Searching for an article you already know about

This may be useful if you have identified an article relevant to your research and want to discover how many times it has been cited in quality journals, and what those citations are.

To search for a specific paper, type/paste the title of the article into the search box. If details of the article are included in Scopus, you'll see it in the list of results. Click on the title to read the abstract and see a clickable list of references.  Alternatively, the far right column of the results list indicates how many times the article has been cited. Clicking on this number would give a list of these citing articles.

Searching by topic in Scopus

Type keywords/phrases into the search box that appears on the Document search page (you can add additional search boxes by clicking on the plus sign +). Limit your search further using the options on the search page (for example by date), or using the options at the left of the screen once you click Search and get to the list of results. Refine your search as much as possible to ensure all the results are relevant to your research.

When you have a list of results you are happy with, think about how you want to sort them.  Articles are usually automatically sorted with the most recent at the top.  Use the drop down menu at the top right of the results to sort in other ways, including by Relevance and by Cited by (Highest). 

Locating articles in your research area with a high number of citations can be a useful way of identifying key research, though remember that not all citations are positive, so a high number of citations may indicate controversy or criticism as well as approval. Open up the citing articles, by clicking on AL Link to Full Text, and then and use Ctrl+F to search for the first author of the original article and see how the article has been cited. Also note that there are many ways to evaluate an article, and that you shouldn't discount articles with a low number of citations. As well as helping you see how citing articles have referred to an original article, looking at citations can help with identifying more recent relevant articles.

Related documents

Each article in the list of results in Scopus has a Related documents option. Click on this to see other articles which share references with your original articles. This is likely to be a high number - you could use this as a mini-database, originating from one article, and search within these related documents for your keyword(s).

Click on an article title to see a list of references, and click on 'AL Link to Full Text' to check whether you have access to the article in any of the Brunel subscriptions. If Brunel does not have access, it may be possible to arrange an Inter Library Loan. 

See our Finding Resources  LibGuide for further advice on searching. Alternatively, contact your Academic Liaison Librarian for one to one support.