On this page:
Starting with a basic search
The search bar on the JSTOR homepage allows you to search across all types of content including text, images, audio, and video. You can enter one or more keywords, authors, and/or titles without any special formatting to return a broad list of results.
- You can enter up to 200 characters (which includes spaces) in the search bar.
- Putting quotation marks around multiple terms will search for an exact phrase.
- You can also use operators such as AND, OR, or NOT to get more specific search results. If you enter multiple search terms without any operators, they'll be joined with AND by default. See Searching: Boolean Operators for more information.
For example, a search for Jane Austen (without quotation marks) will return items that contain both Jane AND Austen, either together or separately. Whereas a search for "Jane Austen" (within quotation marks) will only return results that contain this name exactly.
Choosing scholarly and primary sources
The total number of items that match your search is displayed on the search results page above your results. You can use the Content Type filters in the Refine Results sidebar to quickly narrow your results to scholarly and/or primary sources.
Here are the types of content you can find on JSTOR:
- Academic content
- Book chapters
- Journals
- Research reports
- Primary source content
- Audio
- Books (including theses, dissertations, rare books)
- Documents (such as letters or public records)
- Images
- Panoramas
- Serials (such as historic publications)
- Video
Refining your results
You can further refine your search results by using the filters and facets in the Refine Results sidebar. Note that certain filters only apply to certain types of content. See Searching: Using Filters and Facets to learn more.
As you apply filters to your search, they’ll appear at the top of the search results page following the total number of results. Click the X next to any filter to remove it, or use the Remove all filters link to clear all filters on your results.
By date
To limit your results to items published or created within a specific date range, enter date(s) in the Date filter in the format YYYY, YYYY/MM, or YYYY/MM/DD and click Apply.
Note that you’re not required to enter both a From and To date. For example, entering "2015" under the From field and leaving the To field empty will limit your results to content from 2015 to the present date.
By subject
Academic content such as journal articles, book chapters, and research reports can be refined by subject heading with the Subject filter. The number of results that match each subject appear in parentheses following each filter.
Adding search terms
You can add additional terms or phrases to your search query at any time using the Search within results field. Additional terms will narrow your original search query with the AND operator, and you’ll see your updated query reflected in the search bar.
Sorting your results
By default, your search results will be sorted with the most relevant results first. Relevance is determined by how many matches for your search term(s) are found in an item's metadata and content. Matches in an item's title or author/creator metadata are given more weight than matches in other fields or within the full text of an item.
You can use the Sort by drop-down menu before the list of results to change how your results are sorted. For text, video, and audio content, you can sort by Relevance, Newest, or Oldest.