How to Search JSTOR (jstor.

org)

OVERVIEW

JSTOR supports full-text keyword searching across all of the content on jstor.org. JSTOR
generally includes all the content from articles, books, and pamphlets, cover to cover. This
makes it possible to search front matter and back matter, letters to the editor, advertisements,
and other types of material along with scholarly articles and book chapters. The default setting
for search results is to show matches for only content licensed or purchased by the library, but
a researcher may choose to change this setting for their own session.

There are two search forms on JSTOR.org, a Basic Search (on the main page at
http://www.jstor.org/ and at the top of most pages) and an Advanced Search
(www.jstor.org/action/showAdvancedSearch). This guide will cover each of these forms, as well
as how to understand search results.

BASIC SEARCH

Quick Tips

The Basic Search form appears on the main page of www.jstor.org and also at the top of most
content pages on the site. You can type any search terms into the Basic Search box and JSTOR
will search for those terms across all of the content licensed or purchased by the library.
Here are a few things you can do to easily improve your search results:

• Place words within quotation marks to search for exact phrases (“to be or not to be”).
• Use Boolean operators to search for alternate terms (microcredit OR microfinance).
• Use ti: to search for the title of an article or book (ti:"body ritual among the nacirema")

While we call the simple search form a "Basic Search," you can perform fairly complex queries
with it using special codes and Boolean operators. These options are explained in more detail
below.

See the online version of this guide at http://guides.jstor.org/howto-search 1

Combining Search Terms & Boolean Logic

You may combine search terms and fields using AND, OR, and NOT (Boolean logic). In JSTOR,
Boolean operators must be entered in uppercase letters.
AND: When you combine search terms with AND in a full-text search, your results contain
everything in which both terms appear. Combining search terms makes your search results
more precise. You can explicitly denote AND in the following ways: cat AND dog, cat &&
dog, +cat +dog, (cat dog)
OR: Using OR between search terms allows to you find all items that contain either term. Using
OR will search for items that contain either the word "cat", the word "dog", or both. For
example: cat OR dog
NOT: Searches using NOT will only find items that do not contain the search term following it.
NOT must be capitalized. To find all items with the word cat that do not contain the word dog,
search for: cat NOT dog, cat -dog (Be sure to include a space before the dash, but not after).

Grouping Combined Search Terms

Parentheses allow you to determine the order in which terms are combined. The search
"currency reform" AND (russia OR "soviet union") will search for items that contain the
phrase currency reform and that contain either russia or soviet union. Without grouping
parentheses, the search is interpreted as "currency reform" AND russia OR "soviet union,"
which returns items containing either both currency reform and russia or containing soviet
union. By using parentheses, you may control the grouping of search terms. Additional
examples:

• (finch OR sparrow) AND exotic will search for items that contain the word exotic and
either the word finch or the word sparrow
• (birds OR butterflies) NOT sparrow will search for items that contain either the word
birds or butterflies and do not contain the word sparrow
• birds NOT (sparrow AND robin) will search for items that contain the word birds but do
not contain both the words sparrow and robin
• birds NOT (sparrow OR robin) will search for items that contain the word birds but do
not contain either the word sparrow or the word robin

Searching for an Exact Phrase

If you want to include more than one term in a field search, use parentheses () to enclose your
search terms, or quotation marks (" ") to search for an exact phrase. The example above
("american revolution") searches for the exact phrase "american revolution" rather than
treating it as a phrase search (american AND revolution).

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Refining Your Search

Proximity Searching
JSTOR search allows you to find terms that are within a set number of words of each other
using the tilde (~) symbol. In this example ("debt forgiveness"~10), you will only get results
with the terms debt and forgiveness within ten words of each other.

Boosting Term Relevance

You may increase the importance of any term in your search by using the caret (^) symbol
followed by a number that represents the rise in relevance. In the example above (cat^7 dog),
an occurrence of the word cat in an item is seven times more important than the word dog.

Using Field Abbreviations

You can narrow search results to a variety of item or journal information. This is possible
because JSTOR uses fields for categorization of metadata. Each field is represented in a search
by its abbreviation. The example above (au:smith) will find all items for which Smith is listed as
an author. Appending ty:fla to a search ("great gatsby" ty:fla) will limit a search to full-length
articles, and ty:brv will limit a search to book reviews.

Other frequently used field abbreviations are:

Code Returns results from: Example

jo: Journal title field jo:econometrica

ta: Article title field (does not search books title field) ta:modernism

ab: Item abstract field (please note that only about 10% of ab:microfinance
articles on JSTOR include abstracts)
ca: Illustration caption field ca:rembrandt

vo: Journal Volume field vo:134

Other less commonly used field abbreviations include:

cty:(book) = book
cty:pamphlet = pamphlet
rt: title of a reviewed work
so: or jo: journal title
no: issue or number
sn: or in: International Standard Serials Number (ISSN).

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Limiting a Search to Content in a Specific Language
JSTOR uses the Library of Congress's three letter MARC language codes in our metadata. You
can append these codes to a search to limit the results to content in a specific language. An
example: camus la:fre

la:ara = Arabic
la:chi = Chinese
la:dut = Dutch
la:eng = English
la:fre = French
la:ger = German
la:gre = Greek Modern
la:heb = Hebrew
la:ita = Italian
la:jpn = Japanese
la:lat = Latin
la:por = Portuguese
la:rus = Russian
la:spa = Spanish
la:swe = Swedish
la:tur = Turkish

Searching for Multiple Spellings of a Term

Using the tilde symbol

You can find words with spellings similar to your search term by using the tilde (~) symbol at the
end of a search term. For example, ti:dostoyevsky~ helps find items with dostoyevsky in the
item title field, as well as variant spellings such as dostoevsky, dostoievski, dostoevsky,
dostoyevski, dostoevskii, dostoevski, etc. Note: This way of searching encompasses a very large
number of words. Narrowing this kind of search to the item title or another field is
recommended. The first letter always remains the same.

Wildcards
Wildcards take the place of one or more characters in a search term. A question mark is used
for single character searching. An asterisk is used for multiple character searching.
Wildcards are used to search for alternate spellings and variations on a root word. Wildcard
characters cannot be used in place of the first letter of a word or within an exact phrase
search. For example:

wom?n finds the words woman, women, womyn,

bird* finds bird, birding, birdman, birds, and other words that start with bird
organi?ation finds organization or organisation
behavior* searches for behavior, behavioral, behaviorist, behaviorism, or behaviorally

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You can combine search terms containing wild cards (wom?n AND "science education") and
they may be used in a field search: au:sm?th or ti:shakespeare*

ADVANCED SEARCH

Limiting a Search to a Specific Field

Use the drop-down boxes to limit search terms to the title, author, abstract, or caption
text. Important to know:

• If you limit your search to the abstract field, you will search only a subset of the journal
content on JSTOR. JSTOR doesn't create abstracts for content that was published
without them; abstracts exist for only about 10% of the articles. Abstracts tend to be
more common in certain disciplines (social sciences, sciences) and in more recently
published content.
• Captions are searchable for much, but not all of the image content on JSTOR. Some
images do not contain captions.

Combining Search Terms

Use the drop-down boxes to combine search terms using the Boolean operators, AND/OR/NOT
and NEAR 5/10/25. The NEAR operator looks for the combinations of keywords within 5, 10, or
25 words places of each other. Important to know: The NEAR operator only works when
searching for single keyword combinations. For example, you may search for cat NEAR 5 dog,
but not "domesticated cat" NEAR 5 dog.

Narrowing a Search

Use the “Narrow by” options to search only articles, include/exclude book reviews, search for
content published during a particular time frame, or in a particular language.

Limit an Article Search to a Specific Discipline(s)

Focus an article search in specific disciplines and titles using checkboxes. Important to know:
Discipline searching is currently only available for searching journal content. Selecting this
option will exclude ebooks from the search.

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UNDERSTANDING SEARCH RESULTS

Organizing and Filtering Search Results

The format and display of search results is the same for Basic and Advanced searches.

• Use the options on the left to filter results by journal articles, ebook chapters,
• and
Use pamphlets.
the sorting options to view search results by relevance, oldest items, or newest
items.
• Check the "Show snippets" option to see a short excerpt from the text.
• Change the “Access level” option to “All Content” to see results across all content on
JSTOR,
not just the content licensed/purchased by the library.
• Select citations from the search results and use the "Export Selected Citations" feature
to email or export citations in a variety of formats.

Search Relevance

Relevance on JSTOR is a combination of many things. Key elements include:

• More unique terms in the text result in higher scores when searches contain those
terms. For example, the keyword “epistemology" gets a greater boost than “university”
because it is less common.
• Phrase matches are boosted higher than just keyword matches. A search for "the quick
brown fox" will assign higher relevance to a document containing the exact words "the
quick brown fox" than a document containing "the brown fox is quick."
• More recent content is given a slight boost.

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