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Introduction
Web of Science is a bibliographic database and a citation index that searches and links to full-text articles in other databases. As a bibliographic database, Web of Science contains information about articles, such as title, author, date of publication, etc.
Web of Science is also a powerful citation index. Citation indexes show the relationships among scholarly papers and provide a "reference trail" in order to follow information pathways. A citation index search is highly recommended as part of any larger literature search strategy.
Access Web of Science
- Web of ScienceArticles and citations in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
Coverage: Varies
When to use a citation index
Articles that cite your article can be relevant to your research. Discover how a known idea or innovation has been confirmed, applied, improved, extended, or corrected. Databases that include citation searching:
- ScopusPeer-reviewed literature from scientific journals, books and conference proceedings, covering the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
Coverage: 1966 - present - Web of ScienceArticles and citations in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
Coverage: Varies
Two methods of searching in Web of Science
Step 1: Enter your search terms in the search fields
Tip: The first 3 boxes are filled with general terms related to the lab and the 4th box contains terms related to the specific section of the lab. So this 4th box might change depending on the section of the lab you are researching. For example: you might also be interested in searching the terms "chlorophyll permeability"
Step 2: Review your search results
Tip: Sort and refine your results if you have too many to review quickly.
Step 3: Read the abstract to determine if you want look at the whole article
Tip: You might find other ways of describing your topic while reading the abstract. If this happens, it might be time to revise your search! Access: Note the journal information and access the full-text of the article using the Get it @ Waterloo link, as seen in Image 3 below.
Step 4: Get your article
When exploring an article abstract in Web of Science, click the Get it@Waterloo link to see your full-text access options.
Learn more about Get it @ Waterloo
Articles that cite another article have a higher probability to be related to the article. Cited reference searching is a quick way to narrow your search down, especially if you are only looking for a small number of related research articles.
STEP 1: Search for one of the articles given in class using the title information.
Change the field to "Title", as seen in Image 4 below.
Image 4: Title search in Web of Science
STEP 2: Tracing the history
Once you have an abstract selected, scan to the right of the abstract title and click the Times Cited (highlighted below)
Image 5: Times Cited link in Web of Science
Step 3: Scanning through citing articles under the Timed Cited tab
The page below shows the articles that have previously cited the article that you were just searching for. Review the results to find out if there is any additional information that is relevant to your lab or search.
Tip: Sort and refine your results if you have too many to review quickly.
