Scopus is a huge database for searching journal articles, conference papers, book series, and websites, primarily in the sciences, engineering, and medicine. Its best coverage is from 1996+, but there are also vast listings before then, some back to 1823.
Scopus Alerts (Lite) is the app; to use it, your institution must have the (costly) subscription to Scopus, and good news – we do. You cannot sign up through the app, so before you leave for the beach, sign up online: go to Scopus and register (you’ll find the link on the top right).
Although the app only offers a single search box, you can search these fields:
- All
- Title – Abstract – Keywords
- Author
- Source Title [i.e., journal title]
- Affiliation
- ISSN
- DOI
From your list of hits, you can click “Options” and choose to save the search and get alerts, change sort order to citation count or to relevancy, or e-mail the results.
The results show the article title, year, authors, journal title, and number of times it’s been cited. When you click on a citation, you also see the abstract and the number of references. From there, “Options” will let you choose
- create citation alert
- add to favorites
- e-mail article
- tweet article
Note: Scopus and the app are not coordinated, so searches that you’ve saved in one won’t be saved in the other.
Make sure to look at the helpful Alerts, Citations, and About buttons on the bottom. Happy searching!