• 10 March 2020

Why Scopus is essential for

your literature review

Lucia Schoombee, Senior Customer Consultant Research

Intelligence
2 March 2023
Housekeeping

• Kindly pass any questions in the Q & A box only

• The presentation and video recording from this webinar will be shared
with you after the session
• Certificates will be issued
(You will receive the passcode along with the post-webinar e-mail)
Today’s Program
• What is Scopus?
• How to access and register for Scopus
• What is a literature review?
• Why is Scopus useful for conducting a literature review?
• Questions

02.04.2020
What is Scopus?
Scopus is a global, multidisciplinary database for discovering academic literature
and includes visualisation tools to analyze search results; as well as metrics to
measure research performance.
Scopus uniquely combines a comprehensive, curated abstract and
citation database with enriched data and linked scholarly content.

Identify and analyze which

90 million+ journals to read/submit to
Items
Track and assess a researcher’s
impact

27,100+ Decide what, where and with

1.7 billion cited references
Serial titles whom to collaborate
dating back to 1970

Track impact of research and

261,000+ monitor global research trends
Books
7,000+ Find the current research; what has been
Publishers published in a research area
94,000+ 17 million+
Affiliation profiles Author profiles
Determine how to differentiate
research topics, find ideas

Quickly find relevant and trusted research, identify experts, and access reliable data,
metrics and analytical tools to support confident decisions around research strategy –
all from one database and one subscription.
Scopus Coverage Summary (Jan. 2023)
Global representation means global discovery across all subjects and content types
90.0M records from 28.0K serials, 149K conferences and 289K books
from more than 7,000 publishers in 105 countries
• Updated daily—approximately 12,000 new articles per day indexed
• 20.54M open access documents
• “Articles in Press” from >8,740 titles
• 1.56M preprints from multiple preprint servers
• 6,128 active Gold Open Access journals indexed
Number of journals by
subject area** Journals Conferences Books Patents
Physical sciences 27,950* active peer-reviewed 149K conference 69.2K individual book 49.0M patents
9,065 journals events series volumes
5 major patent offices:
6,128 Gold OA Journals 11.6M conference 289K stand-alone
Health sciences (DOAJ/ROAD) papers books • WIPO
7,596 • EPO
19.1M fully-indexed funding 12.9% of database 2.48M total book • USPTO
acknowledgements items items • JPO
Social sciences 1.56M preprints • UK IPO
and humanities
11,526 • Full metadata, abstracts and cited Mainly Engineering and Focus on Social
references (refs post-1970 only) Computer Sciences Sciences and A&H
Life sciences • Citations back to 1970
5,164

*Journals may be classified in multiple subject areas: this count includes current actively indexed titles only
**These counts include both active and inactive titles; total number of Scopus journals in database including inactive titles is 43,400
Maintaining high-quality:
Scopus rigorous re-evaluation process and criteria
• Less than half of the reviewed titles are selected for Scopus coverage.
• The Content Selection Advisory Board is selective and strict on quality.
What is a literature review?
• A literature review is a comprehensive summary of previous research on a topic
as discussed in scholarly articles, books, and other sources relevant to a
particular area of research.
• The review should enumerate, describe, summarize, objectively evaluate and
clarify this previous research.
• In essence, it creates a "landscape" for the reader, giving her/him a full
understanding of the developments in the field as it unfolds in the literature
• This landscape informs the reader that the author has indeed assimilated all
previous, significant works in the field into her or his research.
Literature Review steps
• Setting the topic in context

• Looking at information sources

• Using information sources

• Getting the information

• Organising the informing

• Positioning the literature review

• Writing the literature review

Developing a search strategy
Step 1: Write down your topic/research question

Step 2: Identify key concepts/words/phrases

Step 3: Identify synonyms for each concept

Step 4: Combine concepts together using operators – and/or/not

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

 The extent of
Search query machine learning in
food production
Overlooking the importance of using the right keywords and
phrases relevant to the topic means that you could miss
''deep learning’’
''machine learning''
important information due to a weak search query.
''artificial intelligence''
Operators
''algorithm‘’
 Loose phrase “heart attack”
 Exact phrase {oyster toadfish}
''digital farming‘’
 Close proximity of each other pain W/5 morphine “''digital agriculture‘’
 Replace a character with * e.g., he* will match any word agriculture
starting with he, such as he, her, help, hello, helicopter farming
 Replace one character with ? e.g., he? Will match hem, crops
hen, etc.
''food production’’
 Boolean order

sensor w/15 robot and water or orbit or planet

3/3/2023
Validation
• Where was the research published?
• When was it published?
• Has it been peer-reviewed?
• Does the author have good credentials?
• Is the article free from bias?
Because Scopus is very COMPREHENSIVE you won’t
miss out on important literature

When you embark on research it is

important to make sure you are familiar
with previous research in the field

Scopus allows you to get an extensive

overview of all research which has been
published
ABSTRACTS help you determine relevancy quickly

Every publication in Scopus has an abstract,

allowing you to quickly evaluate whether a
publication is relevant for your needs

15
PEER-REVIEW ensures your research is scholarly
and validated by experts

• Scopus indexes only peer-reviewed

journals
• Approved by an independent selection
board
• Peer review is one of the primary
criteria
• Ensures that literature is scholarly
• Provides a solid foundation for your
research

16
CITATIONS help you retrieve relevant publications and
distinguish the top ones

1. Because citation indexing

is used you find all
relevant publications
even if you don’t use the
right keywords
2. Because citations are
endorsements, you can
use it to differentiate the
top publications

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders

of Giants’’ – Sir Isaac Newton
ANALYSIS TOOLS help you get a global overview
of your field

analysis by year, source, author, affiliation, country, doc type, subject area, funding sponsor
CURATION OF JOURNALS allows you to select quality
journals to read and to publish in

Journal metrics such as

CiteScore, SNIP and SJR
allows you to evaluate the
reputation of a journal

Image from: https://blogs.bmj.com/bjsm/files/2020/01/iStock-596064504.jpg

 Demo

The extent of machine learning in food production

( TITLE-ABS-KEY ( ''deep AND learning OR ''machine AND learning'' OR ''artificial AND intelligence'' OR
''algorithm'' OR ''digital AND farming'' OR ''digital AND agriculture'' ) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY ( agriculture OR farming
OR crops OR ''food AND production'' ) )
Finding Help
Live Chat, Help and Tutorials
Where to find more information:
Learn and connect with us via the Scopus blog, newsletter, Twitter, infosite & more!
Blog.Scopus.com Twitter.com/Scopus

Librarian toolkit

Newsletter

Scopus info site:

elsevier.com/scopus
Thank you