Parameters
After you have started the application the very first screen you should see is the search parameters window. It provide a couple of fields to specify your interest about an author or a set of authors and eventually start the search.
Parameters
- Names included in the search
- Names excluded in the search
- Published between
- Areas
- Self-citation filtering
Names included in the search
You can search for multiple names at once. This is typically useful when an author publish during her carrier under different name-variants. Each name should be in a separated line as the example shows!
Names excluded in the search
Sometimes you can see authors among your results which you prefer to rid off because they are not relevant in your point of view! So you can specify a list of these names even before you started the search. Each name should be in a separated line as the example shows!
Published between
You can set dates to focus your results even more! The dates should be in year format only like 1996.
If you don't set these fields or any of them than you will get a wider search in time.
Areas
Another important option is the possibility to set topics which you are willing to search in.
If you set none of them you will get the widest possible search which will not focus on topics at all.
Self-citation filtering
This feature is very useful, but very expensive as well! If you switch it on you will get the number of self-citations indeed but as an expense the search may take a long time. In contrast it can be a half an hour instead of seconds as normal search should be.
Another risk is that you could be banned for a while (few hours) by the service if the search-engine options were set inappropriately. To avoid this you should check the help content about search-engine options.