Getting Better Results with JSTOR

Tips for searching this database

Basic searching in JSTOR


JSTOR's opening inage with All Content search box, image search box, and link to advanced search

The basic search in JSTOR allows you to put in keywords AND operators as you like. It also offers the advanced search just below. Because JSTOR is searching so many documents at once, I find the advanced search more useful, but either will get you something on the topic.

Five Top Tips for Searching in JSTOR

1. JSTOR doesn't have a thesaurus or list of subject terms. Therefore, you may have to use synonyms strung together with the OR boolean operator, field tags, which mark parts of a citation, or both, to draw up a more specific set. 

For example: ti:Twelfth Night OR 12th Night for the play's title IN an item's title

2. You may use quotation marks around a phrase to make JSTOR search for it as that phrase.

For example: "wine production"

For example: "Plutarch's Lives"

3. You can use * as a truncation symbol; a stem word and * , like comput*, gets compute, computation, computers, computing and so on.

4. Search for specific authors in three possible ways:

  • aa:Item Author,
  • au:Name format 
  • choose author from the dropdown menu for the search box.

JSTOR will default to other similar authors' names if it doesn't find the exact one.

5. Use the advanced search in JSTOR to limit a search to a particular publication type, like article or book review (check article or review under item type) in the advanced search pages, as well as to select a set of journals from a particular discipline. That is one way to get fewer results while increasing the specificity of the set.

Searching in JSTOR, continued

Search JSTOR using your chosen terms. AND is assumed between words. OR works only if in capital letters. NOT or the minus sign - can be used to exclude terms. Do not put a space between the mark and the search term.

For example, searches like:

"James Joyce" Ulysses (oeuvre OR "body of work")

"water quality" (benthic OR lotic) macroinvertebrates -riparian

should work better than putting in complete sentences.

Use the "Find It" link [more direct] or the "Library Search" link to locate items if you have set your preferences to work with our Libraries' pages.