Policy Commons

1. Create an account. 
2. If you’ve already created an account, login before you search.  This allows you to create and curate lists of policy documents and save searches.

Search for by author name

1. Click on ‘Advanced Search’
2. Enter the author’s name, including possible variations, such as how it might appear in a refence list, using phrase searching and Boolean operators e.g. "alan simpson" OR "simpson, alan" OR "alan c. simpson" OR "simpson, alan c." OR "a. simpson" OR "simpson, a."
3. If the author has a relatively common name, add additional keywords that represent their research area into the search box.  You can also use the filters beneath the search box to refine the search
4. Click on ‘Search’.
5. If necessary, use the filters on the left side of the page to refine results.
6. To ensure that the policy documents in the results do actually cite the author’s work, click on each result.
7. Click on ‘View’ and then using Ctrl+F search for the author’s name, and then check the cited document is theirs.

Search for a specific document

1. Type the name of the document using quotation marks.
2. Click on search.
3. Review the results, as above to ensure that the correct document is cited.

Search for policy documents by topic

1. Click on ‘Advanced Search’ and enter your keywords into the search box.
2. Choose filters if appropriate.
3. Click on ‘Search’.
4. Use the filters on the left of the results list to further refine your search.

Add items to a list

1. Add individual records by clicking on the ‘Add to list’.
2. Click on ‘+Create new list’.
3. Enter the list title into the box and then click ‘Save’.
4. To add to an existing list, after clicking on ‘Add to list’ select the appropriate list and then click ‘Save’.
5. To add all search results to a list, click on ‘Export’ and then ‘Add to list’ and follow the same steps as above.

Save a search and manage alerts

1. Click on ‘Follow’.
2. Click on your profile (top right corner).
3. Select ‘Following’ from the dropdown menu.
4. Select the alert frequency from the dropdown menu in the ‘Alerts’ column
5. If you no longer require the search click on the X to delete it.

Export search results

1. Results can be exported from the results page by clicking on ‘Export’.
2. Click on your preferred format, CSV or RIS (to add to a reference manager)

Export lists

1. Click on your profile (top right corner).
2. Select ‘Lists’ from the dropdown menu.
3. Select the list. 
4. Click on ‘Export’ to create a CSV or RIS file. 

Manage your lists

1. Click on your profile (top right corner).
2. Select ‘Lists’ from the dropdown menu.
3. To change the settings of the list click on ‘Edit’. Make your changes and click ‘Save’.
4. To delete a list, click on the X next to the list.