Science Explorer
Positional Field Searches
The pos() operator allows you to search for an item within a field by specifying the position in the field. The syntax for this operator is pos(fieldedquery,position,[endposition]). If no endposition is given, then it is assumed to be endposition = position, otherwise this performs a query within the range [position, endposition] where position is the leftmost position considered and endposition is the rightmost. For example:
| Example | Results |
|---|---|
| pos(author:”Oort, J”,2) | papers that have “J. Oort” as the second author |
| pos(author:”Oort, J”,2,2) | same as above |
| pos(author:”Oort, J”,1,3) | papers that have “J. Oort” as first, second, or third author |
| pos(author:”Oort, J”,-1) | papers that have “J. Oort” as the last author, could be only author |
| pos(author:”Oort, J”,-2,-1) | papers that have “J. Oort” as either of the last two authors |
| pos(aff:harvard,1) | papers for which the first author has a Harvard affiliation |
| pos(title:M31,1) | papers for which the title starts with “M31” |
Currently the pos() operator works on these fields: author, aff, title.
Last Author
For the special case of last author searches, a template is available from the all search terms dropdown menu for every disciplinary interface. In addition, it is available as a QUICK FIELD choice for the Biological and Physical Sciences. Selecting a last author search by either of these means places pos(author:””,-1) in the search bar so that the user can enter the desired author’s name.
