Veronica Calderhead
Librarian
September 25, 2007
Learning Tools: Class Guides: Dana Class Guides:
Introduction to the Web Of Science

Introduction

Web of Science (WOS) is the electronic version of all the citation indices (Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index). It is available to all RU students, staff and faculty either on site or through remote access (for details, refer to How do I connect from off-campus?) [http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu /rul/how_do_i/connect_from_home.shtml].

To use WOS, first go to the Rutgers University Libraries Website: [http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu] Make the following selections:

  • RESEARCH RESOURCES
  • Indexes and Databases
  • By Title
  • Web of Science
  • Connect to database
  • Web of Science - Go

The opening page of WOS asks the user to choose the type of search: general search, cited reference search, and advanced search. Avoid advanced search unless you know exactly what you are doing, results will be disappointing otherwise.

Section I - General Search

Use the General Search to find articles on a specified topic, person or place of interest. In other words, the General Search option executes a regular literature search using author, keyword or subject. WOS uses the terms topic (= subject), author, and address(= institution where the author works).

General Search By Topic

  • Topic Search (click on topic)
  • Enter keywords (instructions on keyword truncation, combining etc. is on the search page)
  • Search

The results will be posted in reverse chronological order (default can be changed) with approx. 10 citations/page. The total number of references retrieved is posted at the bottom of the page. You must scroll down to see the number of references in your answer set.

  • Mark the appropriate references in the summary list
  • Submit the checked references at the end of each page

Go To Section IV - Marking and Submitting Results for further information on formatting for print/save/email.

  • Marked List (the icon is found at the very top of the page)
  • Email
  • Home or General Search or Cited Ref Search or Logoff
N.B. If you forget to submit the results at the end of each page, all of the references will be lost.

General Search By Author

  • Author
  • Enter the author's or authors' name (instructions available on search page)
  • Search
N.B. The truncation symbol * is used if you are unsure of the authors' initials, e.g. Roig M*. This symbol can be used at any point in the name entry. The less you enter, the more you retrieve.

  • Mark the appropriate references in the summary list
  • Submit the checked references at the end of each page, approx. 10 references/page.
N.B. If you forget to submit the results at the end of each page, all of the references will be lost.

Go to Section IV - Marking and Submitting Results for further information on formatting for print/save/email.

  • Marked List (the icon is found at the very top of the page)
  • Email
  • Home or General Search or Cited Ref Search or Logoff

General Search By Address

A Address search is not a search on a geographic region, rather it is a search done in order to retrieve the most recent articles published by researchers working in a particular institutional place (college, university, company, etc.) or geographic place (country, city postal code, etc.)

  • Place
  • Enter the institution's name (instructions on search page)
  • Search
  • Mark the appropriate references in the summary list
  • Submit the checked references at the end of each page, approx. 10 references/page.
N.B. If you forget to submit the results at the end of each page, all of the references will be lost.

Go to Section IV - Marking and Submitting Results for further information on formatting for print/save/email.

  • Marked List (the icon is found at the very top of the page)
  • Email
  • Home or General Search or Cited Ref Search or Logoff

Section II - Cited Reference Search

Use the Cited Ref Search to conduct searches on a topic or by author and also to find articles which cite these works or which use related references. Cited Ref search exploits the citation feature of the index.

Cited Ref Search

You will come to the search page with following search boxes:
  • CITED AUTHOR: Enter cited author name, or names separated by OR as SMITH AB OR JONES CD

    • and/or
  • CITED WORK: Enter 20-character title abbreviation or select from 'list'. This list contains the official abbreviations for all journals/material indexed by the citation index since 1994. It is not 100% comprehensive for material cited before 1994.

    • and/or
  • CITED YEAR: Enter the year of publication.
N.B. It is not necessary to complete each box. You can fill out one box or all three. The more you enter the more precise the retrieval; conversely, the more you enter the higher the chance for a submission error. A cited author and a cited year (year of publication) provide enough information to run a good search.
  • Search
You will see a Cited Reference Index. Now check all boxes that appear to be author (topic etc.) of interest. Note that Web of Science has no quality control and there will be variations on same author, article etc. as a result of spelling variations, typographical error, page variation etc. Choose all variations that fall within your expectation.
  • Mark the boxes that accompany the references that match your query/search.
  • Check all relevant variations
  • Click on 'Finish Search
All citations will be listed. Choose those references of interest.
  • Submit
Go To Section IV - Marking and Submitting Results for further information on formatting for print/save/email.
  • Marked List
    • (the icon is found at the very top of the page)
  • Email
  • Home or General Search or Cited Ref Search or Logoff

Section III - The Reference and Citations

After you search in Cited Ref Search a summary of retrieved articles will display. Each reference contains the usual bibliographic information, e.g., author, title, journal, publication year, pages etc., in addition to two added features:

Times Cited = the number of times a paper/book etc. has been cited (referred to or cited is counted by checking the references included in each paper. If a paper cites another article twice in the same paper, then it is listed as two citations, but only one article is listed).

Clicking the Times Cited link displays a list of all citing papers from all years and all databases. These papers cite the displayed article. As more records are added to the databases, the Times Cited count may increase.

Cited References = the number of references (citations) included in the paper.

The WOS will only show you the number of times cited since 1994. To find citations before 1994 you must use the print version of the index in Dana Library, or make an appointment for an online search.

Section IV - Marking and Submitting RESULTS

The searcher has been marking and submitting results throughout the search, making sure to submit at the end of each page.

  • Submit
  • Marked List (this icon is found at the very top of the page, along with Home, Help, etc.)

A list of marked references is displayed. You can now send those references to your email or printer. Take note of the Format for Print, choose carefully the items you want to include in each reference. Choosing the entire list of features can result in a very lengthy reference. Typically, one reference/page is all that will fit. If you include cited references, and there are 60 references in the article, all 60 first author names will be included in that single reference.

  • E-Mail
Designate any email address; it is not necessary for it to be an RU email address.

"Your marked records have been sent to the specified e-mail address."
  • Logoff (found at the very top of page)

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