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NUR 3165_W Harper: 5. Web of Science

Web of Science

General Information:

Web of Science consists of five databases; UCF subscribes to three:

  1. Science Citation Index Expanded (covers 150 scientific disciplines in more than 6,650 journals dating from 1965)
  2. Social Sciences Citation Index (covers approximately 1,950 journals in more than 50 disciplines since 1965)
  3. Arts & Humanities Citation Index (covers 1,160 journals dating from 1975)

These three databases are equivalent to the printed citation indexes. A cited reference search allows you to find articles that cite a previously published work. This way you can find out if an idea, theory, or other initiative has been confirmed, used, improved, refuted, corrected, etc. It also allows you to build a bibliography of references by going forward in time (if you use an article’s works cited list, you go backwards in time).

Search Tips:

While the intended purpose of these databases is to search for a known citation (Cited Reference Search), you may also conduct a General Search (search for topic term(s), authors, source titles, or addresses) or an Advanced Search (where you can create a more complex search).

You can limit your search to a single index or a specific period of time, or conduct a comprehensive search of all databases and all years. The comprehensive search  does not appear to negatively impact how long it takes to get results: Slow is slow. Using the Author Finder allows you to narrow the field more precisely.

Boolean operators, AND, OR, NOT and the proximity operators of SAME and NEAR are supported. If you use multiple operators, be sure to use parentheses.

The asterisk (*), question mark (?), and dollar sign ($) are wildcard symbols.

  • The asterisk (*) is used to replace any number of characters (including zero).
  • The question mark (?) replaces a single character.
  • The dollar sign ($) replaces one or zero characters.

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    A full record contains all the information about the article you find from a search. This generally includes:

  • author names
  • article title
  • journal data (volume, issue, publication date)
  • author addresses
  • abstract

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    Cited References list the references contained in the article found.

    Times Cited lists the references that cited the article since its publication.

    Related Records shows records of articles that share cited references with the article.

    After beginning a search, use the features in the left side column to refine your search.

    If you have problems loading the Citation Map page, choose only the Forward or Backward direction. If you choose both, you may have display problems if there are a large number of records.

    Be sure to log off when you are done searching Web of Science.

    For More Help:

    Web of Science is a powerful tool for expanding your research. You can use the Help index to locate help topics. There also is a tutorial provided.

    Subject Guide