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Searching: Using Fields

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Why Use Fielded search?

Fielded search helps you narrow your search results so they are more relevant to your research. Searches that are too broad may return too many search results or results that are only somewhat related to the information you are trying to find.

Search result counts can be a helpful way to quickly determine the overall breadth of available content. Results will vary as the specific keyword/s used are adjusted to search JSTOR content.

Example scenario 1: Broader Search

You are interested in anything on all of JSTOR written about F. Scott Fitzgerald for your research.

If you are conducting a broad search for "F. Scott Fitzgerald" (or "f. scott fitzgerald" as the search is not case-sensitive),  you will want all results including the phrase "F. Scott Fitzgerald" on JSTOR.

This will include content written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but also content written about him by others:

f.scottfitzgeraldSearchResults.jpg

Example scenario: Narrower Search

You are interested in anything on all of JSTOR written specifically by F. Scott Fitzgerald for your research.

If instead you decide to do a more specific search, you will want search results that will reflect only content authored by F. Scott Fitzgerald, you might get F. Scott Fitzgerald AND author-specific results a few different ways:

Option 1: You might use the basic search bar alone, entering the search term "F. Scott Fitzgerald" using the author field (short-code au:) before submitting the search for results.

f.scottfitzgeraldAuthoronlySearchResultshilit.jpg

Option 2: You might instead use the Advanced Search to get the same results. In the Advanced Search menu, there are several basic fields on the top half of advanced search. To the right of the first two search bars, you'll see a list:

f.scottfitzgeraldAdvancedAuthSearchhilit.jpg

Select your field of choice under "All Fields" (in this example, "Author") along with your "F. Scott Fitzgerald" keyword and then select "Submit Advanced Search" to get your search results.

Advanced Search Field Options

Advanced search behaves similarly to regular search in many ways, however one key difference is in the field options you may use to adjust the level of detail in your search results. Advanced Search keywords are set to "All fields" by default unless you manually select one a field from the drop-down menu to apply to your search.

The following options are available in the drop-down menu:

  • Author limits your search to the name of an author
  • Item Title limits your search to titles (of books and journal/pamphlet articles) on JSTOR.
  • Abstract searches for your terms in abstracts ONLY
  • Caption will search for your phrase in the captions beneath photos (this is especially relevant in art journals should you, say, be looking for a specific painting)

Once you are happy with your selections, "Submit Advanced Search" to view search results.

Narrow Results

Please note that to effectively narrow your results, search term(s) must first be typed into the "Keyword" search bar on the page. 

Advanced Search offers even more fields, drop-down menus, and checkboxes that might be used to narrow your search results (you may need to continue to scroll down below the "Submit Advanced Search" button to view these)

You can keep narrowing your search by item type (Articles, Books, Reviews and everything else), date range, language, publication (aka a specific journal, book or pamphlet) title, ISBN (for books) AND discipline.

f.scottfitzgeraldAdvancedNarrowResultsMenu.jpg

Once you are happy with your selections, "Submit Advanced Search" to view search results.

Journal Filter

The Advanced Search Journal Filter enables researchers to narrow search results by discipline and/or journal.

You can see a title count (how many titles are available for each discipline) as well as what specific titles or journals fall under this discipline. Click " > " and related titles will display in a faceted drop-down menu. Journal titles can be selected or de-selected as needed using the corresponding checkbox

Once you are happy with your selections, "Submit Advanced Search" to view search results.

f.scottfitzgeraldAdvancedNarrowResultsMenuJournalFilter.jpg

Searching Using Short Codes

You have the option to bypass Advanced Search altogether and just enter your own search field codes on basic search.

The format looks like this: (FIELD CODE: "Search term")

In the case of F. Scott Fitzgerald our search phrase would be: ( au: "F. Scott Fitzgerald")

Commonly used short codes to narrow search results include:

  • au: = author
  • ti: = title (of book, article, or research reports)
  • ca: = caption
  • ab: = abstract
  • jo: = journal name
  • la: = language

You may also wish to narrow  your search results even further. This can be accomplished by using multiple short codes. An example of using multiple short codes may appear as written in the following example:

If you want to find specifically a review of one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's authored novels, you might search:

(au:"F. Scott Fitzgerald") (cty:journal AND ty:brv)

Short codes for the type of content include:

    • Full Length articles = cty:journal AND ty:fla 
    • Book Reviews = cty:journal AND ty:brv 
    • Miscellaneous = cty:journal AND ty:mis 
    • Book Chapters = cty:chapter 
    • Research Reports = cty:research_report 

Searching Within a Journal

To search within a specific title that is hosted on JSTOR, you can use a Boolean search. 

One way you could do that is by using the journal name shortcode like seen in the previous section. This is how that would look in your search:

 

jo:”Journal Name” AND “Search Term”

 

You can also use a title’s JSTOR specific journal code (JCODE) to search within a journal. Using this method your search would look like the following:

 

jcode:“JCODE” AND “Search Term”

 

How to find a journal's JCODE:

To find the JCODE of a specific journal, you will want to click on the name of the journal on the Browse by Title page. 

After selecting the title, look at the website URL. It will appear in the following form: https://www.jstor.org/journal/[JCODE]/

What follows the forward slash after ‘journal’ is the JCODE. For example, if you were trying to find the JCODE for William and Mary Quarterly, the URL would look like this:

https://www.jstor.org/journal/willmaryquar/ 

In this case, the JCODE is ‘willmaryquar’ 

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