Authors and experts
Why search for authors and experts?
Key authors and experts can be a valuable source of information about studies you have not found through other means.
Search a known author to discover more about them and their works. You might also want to identify key authors and experts in your research area. When searching, remember that author names may be listed differently from one publication to the next.
If you are a research degree candidate, speak with your supervisor prior to contacting key authors or experts.
Find authors and experts
If you know the name of an author and would like to find out more about them, you could search for their work in databases, look for their author profiles (e.g. ORCID, Google Scholar Citations) or use a search engine to find any institutional profile (e.g. university staff homepage).
Most databases will allow you to search for individual authors to see a list of their publications indexed in that particular database. You can also use online author profiles to find individuals' publication lists and information about their research.
| Find author works in Scopus |
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How to search for authors and view their profile in Scopus
From the search page ('Start exploring'):
- Select Authors and enter the name you wish to search
- Add affiliation to narrow the search for more more common names
- Alternatively, Search using: ORCID if you know the author's unique identifier
From the author results page, click on the author name that best corresponds with the details you have, to view the author's profile including their works indexed in Scopus and grouped to this record.
The listed affiliation will be taken from the latest work published by the author and indexed by Scopus.
| Find author works in Web of Science |
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There are two ways to search for authors in Web of Science, via Documents and Researchers.
Documents
- Select the Author field from the dropdown box.
- Type in the name as surname first initial and add the truncation symbol to find alternatives or select one or more options from the index that appears (these represent the different ways the author name may appear in records)
- Add Affiliation for more common names (or filter to this from the results screen)
- The filters on the left-hand menu of the results screen can be used to narrow your results.
Researchers
The Researchers option allows searching by name or author identifier (ORCID or ResearcherID).
Select the field (Name Search or Author Identifiers), enter the author details, and select from the options that appear. If you are aware that the author has published under different names, you have the option to add name variants.
- One or more records will appear. Check the affiliation and other details to ensure you are viewing records and publications for the correct author
Scopus and Web of Science allow you to analyse search results. This may be useful in identifying possible authors to explore further.
| Identify potential experts in Scopus |
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- Type your search into Scopus - for example:
- Select Analyze search results
- Click the Documents by author box.
This will show you how many times a certain author's documents are appearing within your results. You can change the publication date range. Click the bar graph or author name to view the document list as a Scopus results set.
| Identify potential experts in Web of Science |
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Undertake your topic search and then analyse search results by selecting:
- Analyze Results
- Authors
- hover over an author's name to View records
| Search for author profiles |
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Find out more about an author of interest using the the following author profile services. Search by name to discover if authors have a presence on one or more of these.
Guidelines and standards
- Cochrane Handbook, part 2, chapter 4.3.2: Ongoing studies and unpublished data sources
This section provides details on searching for studies that are underway or have not yet been published by commercial publishers.
'If individuals were contacted to identify studies, specify the types of individuals contacted (such as authors of studies included in the review or researchers with expertise in the area)' - PRISMA 2020 Explanation and Elaboration, p. 6