ScienceDirect Search Guide

Search Language

SCIDIR Search API supports a Boolean syntax, which is a type of search allowing users to combine keywords with operators such as AND, NOT and OR to further produce more relevant results. For example, a Boolean search could be "heart" AND "brain". This would limit the search results to only those documents containing the two keywords.

URL encoding

The Boolean search is submitted through the query string parameter 'query'. As with all other query string parameters, the contents of the submitted search must be URL-encoded. It should be noted that the '+' character serves a special purpose as a query string value, functioning as an equivalent to the space character (i.e. %20). In order to submit a literal character '+' it must be properly URL-encoded (i.e. %2B).

This search...	must be URL-encoded as:
KEY(mouse AND NOT cat OR dog)	KEY%28mouse+AND+NOT+cat+OR+dog%29
KEY(cat AND dog AND NOT rodent OR mouse)	KEY%28cat+AND+dog+AND+NOT+rodent+OR+mouse%29
DOI("10.1021/es052595+")	DOI%28%2210.1021%2Fes052595%2B%22%29

Example:

http://api.elsevier.com/content/search/scidir?query=DOI%28%2210.1021%2Fes052595%2B%22%29

Connectors

Connectors can be used to search for more than one word in a single search. Words submitted without connectors will automatically be logically connected by an implicit AND connector. When using more than one connector or operator in a search, an order of precedence is applied to the connectors and/or operators (see below).

In order to search for a specific phrase, the terms should be enclosed in double quotes (" ") or, for an exact match, brackets ({}).

Connector

Description

AND

AND is the default connector. When you enter 2 or more search terms, AND is automatically inserted between any spaces or hyphens in the terms.

Example

heart attack or heart-attack would both be searched as heart AND attack

Use AND when you want all of the terms in your search to appear in returned documents and when terms may be far apart from each other.

Example

lesion AND pancreatic

OR

Use OR when at least one of your search terms must appear in returned documents. You can use OR to search for synonyms, alternate spellings, or abbreviations.

Example

kidney OR renal

AND NOT

Use AND NOT to exclude specific terms from returned documents.

Note	Do not use AND NOT at the beginning of a search.

Example

ganglia OR tumor AND NOT malignant finds documents that contained the terms "ganglia" or "tumor", but not the term "malignant".

Order of precedence 

Boolean searches with multiple operators are processed using the following order of precedence:

1. OR

2. AND

3. AND NOT

After the precedence rules are applied, the search is read left to right. For example:

This search...	is interpreted as:
KEY(mouse AND NOT cat OR dog)	KEY((mouse) AND NOT (cat OR dog))
KEY(cat AND dog AND NOT rodent OR mouse)	KEY((cat AND dog) AND NOT (rodent OR mouse))
All these searches: KEY(mouse OR rat AND rodent) KEY(rodent AND rat OR mouse) KEY(rat OR mouse AND rodent)	are processed as: KEY((mouse OR rat) AND rodent)

Note

AND NOT can give unexpected results when you have multiple operators. We recommend that you put it at the end of your searches. For example, the following search returns a large number of results: KEY(cold) AND NOT KEY(influenza) AND KEY(rhinovirus) To exclude influenza from your search and make it more targeted, use the following instead: KEY(cold) AND KEY(rhinovirus) AND NOT KEY(influenza)

This information regarding precedence order can be found via the link below:

http://help.sciencedirect.com/flare/Content/stadv_connectors.htm

Phrases

Phrase searches operate in three ways, depending on how exact a match is desired. You can find: search terms somewhere in the document; a loose or approximate phrase match; or an exact phrase match.

No quotation marks

To find documents that contain all of your search terms somewhere in the document, but not necessarily next to each other, enter your terms without quotation marks. AND will be automatically inserted between the terms.

Example

If you enter heart attack, your search is for heart AND attack.

Double quotation marks ("")

To find documents where your search terms appear together, enclose your phrase in double quotes. When you use double quotes:

• AND is not automatically inserted between terms.

Example

Entering "heart attack" finds different results than heart attack because the latter is searched as heart AND attack. heart AND attack finds documents that contain both words, even if they are far apart from each other. "heart attack" only finds documents where "heart" and "attack" are next to each other.

• Punctuation is ignored.

Example

Entering "heart attack"or "heart-attack" finds the same results, because the "-" is ignored.

• Wildcards are searched as wildcards.

Example

Searching for "criminal* insan*" finds "criminally insane" and "criminal insanity".

• Plurals are included.

Example

Searching for "heart attack" finds "heart attack" and "heart attacks".

Brackets {}

To find documents that contain your exact phrase, including punctuation, enclose your phrase in brackets. When you use brackets:

• Stop words, punctuation, and special characters are searched.

Example

Searching for {heart-attack} or {heart attack} finds different results because the "-" is considered in the search when it's inside brackets.

• Wildcards are searched as characters.

Example

Searching for {health care?} finds results such as: "The myth of agency and patient choice in health care?".

Note  

o When searching for exact phrases using the Expert search forms, you still need to include parentheses () around the brackets {}. For example, to search for heart attack as an exact phrase in the Title, Abstract, Keywords field, you would enter: tak({heart attack}).

o To search for brackets or double quotes, type a backslash (\) before the bracket or quotes.

Example

Enter {[Hg\{M(CO)4\}2]} to search for the formula [Hg{M(CO)4}2] .

This information regarding precedence order can be found via the link below:

http://help.sciencedirect.com/flare/Content/st_phrases.htm

Wildcards

Wildcard characters can be used to easily find variations of search words, making searching simpler.

Use this wildcard...

To do this...

Asterisk (*)

Replace zero or more characters in a search word. For example, use * to find a root word plus all the words made by adding letters to the end of it.

Example

h*r*t finds "heart", "harvest", "homograft", "hypervalent", and others

Question mark (?)

Replace exactly one character in a search word. Use one question mark for each character you want to replace.

Example

gro?t finds "grout" or "groat", but not "groundnut" or "grommet"

• Make sure the number of question marks in the search term corresponds to the number of letters you want to replace.

Example

transplant?? finds "transplanted" and "transplanter".

Note	transplant?? does not find "transplantation", " transplanting", or "transplant". Because there are two wildcard characters, the search finds only words with exactly two extra characters. To find all variations of "transplant", use the asterisk (*) wildcard character.

• Use a question mark to hold a space for certain variations in spelling at any point in a word.

Example

bernst??n finds both the "ei" and the "ie" spelling of the name.

Note	For some words, it is better to use the asterisk to account for spelling variations. For example, searching for behavi?r does not return results that include "behaviour"; however, searching for behavi*r returns results that include both "behavior" and "behaviour".

This information regarding wildcard searches can be found via the link below:

http://help.sciencedirect.com/flare/Content/st_wildcards.htm

Field Restriction

In order to restrict search criteria to a specific portion of the document, a field name can be included as part of the search. This limits the search terms to that specific section of the document.

Example

title (neurotoxin) finds all the documents that contain "neurotoxin" in the article title.

Searches that do not specify a specific field will search the full record.

Example

neurotoxin finds all documents where "neurotoxin" was mentioned anywhere in the document including in a title, in keywords, in an abstract, and in references.

Field Search Tips

• Field names can be entered in upper or lower case.

• Field names must be spelled exactly the way they are listed below, including hyphens.

• Use the following syntax for text fields to specify a field name in your search string:

field_name(search_term)

Where search_term is the term you want to find and field_name is one of the fields in the field name table.

• For many fields, you can enter three-letter codes instead of the full field name.

Example

Both of these searches search the title, abstract, and keywords fields: title-abstr-key(renal failure) tak(renal failure)

Field name abbreviations, where available, are listed below in the Abbreviation column.

Field Name

Abbreviation

Description

All

Contains the entire document or chapter.

Content-Type

Contains the category of content associated with the document. Content designations are either numeric (prior to October 2014) or an abbreviation:

Pre-October 2014

• 1 - Journals
• 2 - Book Series
• 3 - Handbook Series
• 4 - eBook
• 5 - Major Reference Works

Post-October 2014

• JL - Journals
• BS - Book Series
• HB - Handbook Series
• BK - eBook
• RW - Major Reference Works

Combinations of content can be OR-ed together. For example, the following qualifies against all serial content:

content-type(JL OR BS OR HB)

Content can also be qualified through use of the 'content' query string parameter using the following values:

• serial - Journals, Book and Handbook Series
• nonserial - eBook and Major Reference Works
• journals - Journals Only
• allbooks - Everything except Journals

Contenttypetxt

Deprecated after October 2014. Contains the category of content associated with the document. Content designations are abbreviations:

• JL - Journals
• BS - Book Series
• HB - Handbook Series
• BK - eBook
• RW - Major Reference Works

Content can also be qualified through use of the 'content' query string parameter using the following values:

• serial - Journals, Book and Handbook Series
• nonserial - eBook and Major Reference Works
• journals - Journals Only
• allbooks - Everything except Journals

Title-Abstr-Key

tak

Contains the title, abstract, and author or publisher's keywords.

Abstract

abs

Contains the full text of a document's abstract; all types of abstracts (e.g., non-English text) are included in this search plus the publishing information relating to the original document (e.g., the language of the publication).

Non-Eng-Abst

Contains the non-English summary of the document.

Stereo-Chem-Abst

Contains the details of a chemical compound, including structure, name, formula, and all available stereochemical information.

Authors

aut

Contains the names of the authors of the document.

Specific-Author

aus

Contains an author name as a discrete entity.  For example, a search on the string "John Smith" returns only results in which "John" and "Smith" are both part of an individual author's name (with or without middle initials).  This is in contrast to a search on the "Author" field which returns results in which the terms "John" and "Smith" may occur anywhere in the author field. See Searching for Specific Authors, Affiliations, and Keywords for more information.

Authlastname

Contains the surname (last name) of the document author.

Authfirst

Contains the first name or initials of the document author.

Affiliation

aff

Contains the institutional or corporate address of the article's authors.

Pub-Date

pdt

Contains the date the document was published in numeric format. To search for a specific date using Pub-Date, you must use one of the following date operators:

• BEF or <: Before

• AFT or >: After

• IS or =: Is equal to

Example

pub-date IS 20060103 finds documents published on January 3, 2006. pub-date AFT 20060103 finds documents published after January 3, 2006. pub-date BEF 20060103 finds documents published before January 3, 2006.

See Searching for Dates for more information.

Keywords

key

Contains the author's keywords and the publisher's index terms for the document.

Specific-Authkey

Contains the author's keywords for the document. Use this field when you want to find documents where your search terms occur in the same author keyword field. See Searching for Specific Authors, Affiliations, and Keywords for more information.

Specific-Otherkey

Contains other keywords for the document. Use this field when you want to find documents where your search terms occur in the same other keyword field. See Searching for Specific Authors, Affiliations, and Keywords for more information.

References

ref

Contains the bibliographic references cited at the end of the document.

Title

ttl

Contains the English or non-English article or chapter title.

Srctitle

src

Contains the title of the journal, book, book series, handbook, or Reference Work.

Srctitleplus

Contains the title and volume title (if present) of the journal, book series, or handbook series, and the title of any Reference Work or book. Volume titles include, for example, the titles of Conference Proceedings and Special Issues.

Article-TOC

sub

Contains the text of section headings and subheadings in an article or chapter.

Non-Eng-Title

Contains the non-English title of an article.

Speciss-Name

Contains the name of the conference, the title of the special issue, or the title of the book-series volume or handbook-series volume.

DOI

Contains the Digital Object Identifier (DOI). A DOI is a unique alphanumeric string created to identify a piece of intellectual property in an online environment.

You should enter DOIs with the appropriate formatting; however, you can enter partial DOIs. For example, you could enter the DOI 10.1016/j.cor.2005.08.013 as 10.1016 or j.cor.2005.08.013.

ISSN

Contains the ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) of the series.

You can enter an ISSN with or without the hyphens. For example, you could enter ISSN 0305-0548 as either 0305-0548 or 03050548.

ISBN

Contains the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) of the book, Reference Work, or a volume in a series.

You can enter an ISBN with our without the hyphens. For example, you could enter ISBN 978-0-444-52259-7 as either 978-0-444-52259-7 or 9780444522597.

Vol-Issue

vis

Contains the volume and/or issue identifiers for a serial publication.

Pages

pag

Contains the start and end pages of a document.

Pagefirst

Contains the start page of a document.

Pagelast

Contains the last page of a document.

Doc-Head

Contains the document heading or article type. For example, erratum.

seriesname

Contains parent series name.

seriesissnnorm

Contains the normalized format of parent series ISSN.

seriesvolume

Contains parent series volume.

seriespart

Contains parent series part.

Load-Date

Contains the date that the document was first loaded onto ScienceDirect. The format to be used is YYYYMMDD. For example, Load-Date(20140129) returns documents that were first loaded onto ScienceDirect on January 29, 2014.

To search in combination with BEF and AFT, use Orig-Load-Date.

Orig-Load-Date

Contains the date that the document was first loaded onto ScienceDirect. The format to be used is YYYYMMDD, in combination with before or after. Examples:

Orig-Load-Date AFT 20140103 returns documents that were first loaded onto ScienceDirect after January 3, 2014.

Orig-Load-Date BEF 20140103 returns documents that were first loaded onto ScienceDirect before January 3, 2014.

To search on an exact date, use Load-Date.

This information regarding the search fields and how they are utilized can be found via the link below:

http://help.sciencedirect.com/flare/Content/stexpt_field_all.htm