Help topic: Search results

The 'Search results' page is displayed when you have carried out a quick or advanced search. It shows the criteria you used for the search and lists the articles that match your them. If you want to change your search criteria you can easily do so by clicking on the 'Edit Search' link.

The default order of the results list is by 'Relevancy', which displays articles in order of their relevance to the search criteria used (ie the most relevant article appears first).

How we calculate relevancy

Simple searching runs across the full text of articles and their associated metadata fields (title, author names, keywords, etc). The ranking of the results of the search is determined by the number of times the search term occurs in the full text or in any of the metadata fields, with some fields weighted to raise their results ranking. For example, the search relevancy is increased by a factor of 3 if the search term appears in the article title, by a factor of 2 if it is among the article keywords and by a factor of 1.5 if it is the author's name.

A search for Smith will usually rank results with Smith in the title or as an author above those results where Smith appears in the full text. However, if the search term appears many times in the full text of a document, it will appear near the top of any set of results. It should also be noted that the ranking takes into account the total number of words found in the document or in the metadata fields. Therefore, a single author result will be ranked above an author found in a multi-authored paper.

For example

A Simple Search for Jonathan Smith will return a list of documents ranked as described above.

A document containing 10 occurrences of Jonathan and 10 of Smith will be listed above a document with 12 occurrences of Jonathan only.

A document authored by Michael Smith and containing the words Jonathan and Smith once each within its full text will be listed above a document authored by John Brown that also contains Jonathan and Smith once within its full text.

A document containing Physics 100 times in its full text will be listed above a document with Physics in its title.

And, of course, you can further refine your results using the Advanced Search facility.

For more information about the relevancy formula used, see the Lucene website.

Search results format

Each article entry in the list follows this format (unless you modified the format using the Advanced Search feature):

1. Title
2. Author
3. Journal, Volume, Issue, Month, Page range
4. DOI, online publication date
5. Article content links (Abstract, PDF, HTML, etc...) or 'Add to basket' link

Search results options

The search results are automatically displayed in order of relevance. However, you can change this by selecting a different 'Sort by' option: Journal, Title, Author, Cover Date (ie the date the print issue was published), Date Published Online, Price and Access. To select another option, click on the 'Sort by' drop-down menu, and then click on the option you prefer.

You can also control how many results appear on a page. The default value is set at 10 results per page. For more results per page, click the 'Results per page' drop-down menu, and click on the number you prefer.

You can jump to a specific page in the entire list of results by clicking the 'Go to page' menu. You can also navigate to the first, previous, next and last pages of the entire list of results by clicking the corresponding navigation links.

All of these search result options appear at the top and bottom of all search result pages.

Further search options

You can perform further searches on the search results displayed to get a more precise search result. To search within results, enter your search criteria in the input field below 'Your enquiry has returned XX matches', at the top of the page. Click the 'Search within results' radio button and then click the 'Search' button above it.

To perform a new search, enter your search criteria in the input field below 'Your enquiry has returned XX matches', at the top of the page. Click the 'New search' radio button and then click the 'Search' button above it.

If you would like to refine your search criteria, click your browser's 'Back' button to take you back to the Advanced Search page which will still display your original search criteria. To carry out a new Advanced Search, click on the 'Advanced Search' link to go to a new search form.

Once you found the article(s) you are looking for...

... you can save them, export their citations and add them to your shopping basket.

To save an article, click the checkbox that appears next to it under the 'Save / Export / View citation' column. To select all the articles listed, click the 'Select all' checkbox under the same column. Then click the 'Save selected items' button at the top or bottom of the page.

To export a citation, click the checkbox that appears next to it under the 'Save / Export / View citation' column. To select all the articles listed, click the 'Select all' checkbox under the same column. Then click the 'Export citation' button at the top or bottom of the page.

To add an item to your shopping basket, click the checkbox that appears next to it under the 'Add to basket' column. To select all the articles listed, click the 'Select all' checkbox under the same column. Then click the 'Add to basket' button at the top or bottom of the page. You can also add an item to your shopping basket by clicking the 'Add to basket' link that appears below each article.

If you already have access to the full text of the article(s) because you or your organisation subscribes, or you have bought a pay-per-view article, you can access the article content directly by using the PDF (or HTML where available) links below each article entry.

Multiple abstracts can be viewed on a single page by clicking the checkboxes next to the articles you are interested in under the 'Save / Export / View citation' column. To select all the articles listed, click the 'Select all' checkbox under the same column. Then click the 'View selected abstracts on one page' link at the bottom of the page.

Save search

Once you have carried out a quick or advanced search, you can choose to save the search. You can either save the search results you got at that particular time or you can save the search parameters you used. You can then use these parameters at a later date to search the site again, including any new content that has been added in the meantime. To save a search, click the 'Save search' button at the top or bottom of the page.