Web of Science Overview
- 1. What is Web of Science? You can: • Find out how many times a paper has been cited – gauge the usefulness, quality and influence of the research. • Find which sources have cited an earlier article – then find which articles have subsequently cited it. • Find articles on a similar or related subject – if a paper has cited another article, then they are probably on a similar/related subject. The Web of Science Core Collection is a curated collection of over 21,000 peer- reviewed, high-quality scholarly journals published worldwide (including open access journals) in over 250 science, social sciences, and humanities disciplines. Conference proceedings and book chapters are also listed.
- 2. Open access content • Web of Science does not contain the full text of articles; instead, it provides links to either a free version (open access) or a version which is for sale. • Free access is not available for every article indexed, but there are links to enough free content to make it a very useful database. If you see BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) in Web of Science, and Full Text Finder in MySearch, these will link you to open access content.
- 3. Isn’t Google Scholar just as good? Library Databases Google Scholar • Allow users to focus a search by subject area or other criteria, and to sort results according to date and relevance. • Does not have the ability to focus a search by subject area and does not have an easy way to sort articles in a results list. • Contain full text of articles in most cases, or links to a trusted open access version of the article. •Google Scholar is NOT a full text database. Results may contain a mixture of sources (including citations, cited references and books). Also, duplicate and fragmentary entries may appear, as well as different editions of works, such as pre-prints, which may vary from the version published in a journal. • Allow users to sort results by type of material (academic journal, magazine, newspaper, etc). • Does not clearly specify what type of material (academic journal, magazine, newspaper, etc) is in the results list. • All articles have been checked to determine their suitability and reliability. • Not all articles are scholarly. As always, it is important to review and assess each source for its authority and quality for your research Source: Rider University Libraries, McQuade Library, Howard Community College This is significant for your source evaluation.
- 4. Get started - set up a personal account To access Web of Science from home, you will first need to register. At school, access should be automatic via SSO authentication. 1 2 Submit your email address. Use the code sent to complete your registration. When your registration is complete, you will receive a confirmation email.
- 5. Before you search Before you begin searching, make sure you know alternative terms for your topic in order to ensure you get the best results. Use Boolean Operators to combine or exclude key terms to make your searching more targeted. • AND • OR • NOT • (……) • “……” Use Boolean Operators Source: https://ircutp.wordpress.com/utp-irc-faqs/boolean-operators
- 6. Set up alerts on new content New articles will be sent to your email address – but start early for this to be useful.
- 7. Save your search history If you would like to go back to your previous search results, sign in and save your search history.
- 8. Note full text vs free full text Sort your results by Times Cited to see papers with a higher impact. "High-impact journals" - those considered to be highly influential in their fields. A journal's impact factor is a measure of the frequency with which an average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. Jan 9, 2020 What is high impact factor journal? - ResearchGate More times cited = higher impact Number of times cited in other journals adds credibility and allows you to check follow-up studies citing the article.
- 9. Many articles indexed in Web of Science are not free - but also remember that abstracts can still be a very valuable source of information. What if I can only find an abstract? Look for clues on the page that direct you to the full text of the article or tick Open Access.
- 10. Find full text articles in Web of Science Refine your search to find full text articles, rather than abstracts or paid content, by ticking Open Access.
- 11. Find full text articles in MySearch & ProQuest Copy and paste the title of an article or search terms into MySearch or into ProQuest eLibrary to see if you can find the full text version. You can also try Google Scholar.
- 12. If you still can’t find the full text of an article in Web of Science, MySearch, Proquest eLibrary or Google Scholar, try copying and pasting the title into Google followed by :PDF This may find sites where the full text of the article is available. Find full text articles using Google
- 13. Find associated data You can also refine your search to find associated data for your topic.
- 14. Analyse results visually – dive deep! Add key terms to target your topic more specifically. Analyse your results, then refine your search by clicking on that colour.
- 15. Analyse results – authors You can click on an author to find the full list of their publications. You can also see which organisation they are affiliated with, then email them at that organisation if you are interested in finding out more about their research.
- 16. Clicking on an author’s name will show you: • Which university or organisation they work at • Other papers they have co-authored Where free full text is not available, you may be able to find the author’s email address then contact them to ask them for a copy of their paper. Information about an author
- 17. Create a Citation Report These authors have all cited research from the original list in their own papers; therefore, these results may help you to find supporting evidence. You can refine this list to select only the most recent research.
- 18. Tick articles of interest and add them to your Marked List folder. You can then save or export this list. Web of Science does not automatically create APA references for each article, however all bibliographic details are included. Copy these to create your bibliography. Bibliography details