Web of Science Help Guide

• Database Information: Web of Science
• Searching Web of Science
• Accessing Full Text
• Exporting Results from Web of Science
• Saving Results/Personal Account in Web of Science
• Auto Alerts in Web of Science
• Web of Science tutorials

Web of Science

What is Web of Science?

• Web of Science is an online index that covers journal articles published in the physical and life sciences, health sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
• Web of Science is a great database to use for public health research or other topics that may be of interest to various disciplines.

Searching Web of Science

You will automatically be in the basic Search function of Web of Science. Add your keywords to the search box(es). You can use the left-side pulldown menus to select where Web of Science should search for your word, such as Topic (for keywords), Title (words in the title of the article), etc. You can also select which years the database will search.

Here's an example of a search on measles vaccination:

 

You can add rows and use the pull down menu to choose which Boolean operator (AND, OR, NOT) you want to use to continue your search.

 

On the Results page, you can browse through the citations, mark citations to print/email/save, or refine the results (apply limits) such as publication year, language, subject, document typet:

 

Using the Web of Science to find cited references

ISI Web of Science, part of the ISI Web of Knowledge can be used to find references that cite a particular author or journal article. This is called a cited reference search.

 

Once you are in the ISI Web of Knowledge interface, click on the Cited References.

 

 

Fill in the Cited Reference Form with the author name and journal abbreviation or date of publication. Then, click Search:

Next, select the citation that matches the article you need to find and click on See Results:

 

The Results page will show all of the citations (since 1975) that have cited this particular work:

 

 

When using Library resources, the FindIt link is your connection to accessing the full text of articles if a PDF link is not already visible.

This short video will show you how to get to the articles you need for your research paper or other University of Minnesota assignments. Never pay for articles! If we don't have it online, request it and we will get it for you. 

 

Output Records

Output options are available from the Results and Full Record pages in all Web of Science databases.

Selecting Records and Data -- creating a Marked List.  In order to create a Marked List you need to create a (free) personal account.

1. Select records. The options are all records on the Marked List (up to 500)
   • All records on the Marked List (up to 500)
   • All records on the page. Scroll down to see the records. Tip: Select a number from the Page Size menu at the bottom of the page to increase the number of records per page.
   • Records NN to NN. Use this option to segment a large list of Marked records, for example 1 to 100, 101 to 200, 201 to 300.
2. Select content. Certain fields are selected by default. You do have the option to Select All fields. Keep in mind that adding content-heavy fields such as Abstract and Cited References will increase processing time.
3. Select destination.

E-Mail

1. Select the record(s) to include in the output.

2. Select the data to include in each record.

3. Click the E-Mail icon to e-mail the selected records.

4. In the To field, enter the e-mail address of the person to whom you want to deliver the record(s). Use a semicolon (;) and a space to separate multiple addresses.

5. In the From (optional) field, enter a valid e-mail address. This address will appear in the From box in the recipient's e-mail.

6. In the Notes (optional) field, enter a note to add to the top of the e-mail message (up to 250 characters).

7. Select an E-mail style: Plain Text or HTML. Records in both formats include two-character field tags.

8. Click Send E-mail to deliver the records to the specified e-mail address(s).

Save to File: Reference Software

This option allows you to export selected records to reference software such as EndNote, Zotero, or similar reference software. You should:

• For EndNote Online: This feature allows you to export records to your EndNote library. To use this feature, you must be a registered user of Web of Science and you must sign in.

• For EndNote Desktop:  This feature allow you to export selected records to your desktop version of EndNote. You can also use this feature to export records to Reference Manager.

• Save to file: other reference software

  • Save the file to your hard drive or to your desktop. The product automatically saves the file as an ASCII text file and names the file savedrecs.txt. Each field within the file begins with a two-character tag that identifies the type of data.

  • Open your reference software.

  • Select the Import option.

  • Select ISI (Institute for Scientific Information) for the Import Filter / Data Source if this option is available.

  • Select the savedrecs.txt file that you saved to your hard drive or to your hard drive.

• Save to File: HTML
  • HTML file suitable for viewing with a Web browser. Field data are in a table. The first column contains the two-character field tag and the second column contains the field data.
• Save to File: Plain Text
  • ASCII text file. Each field is prefaced by a two-character field tag. The system saves the document as a text file (for example, savedrecs.txt). Open your saved document using Microsoft® Wordpad, Microsoft Word, or another authoring tool. Do not use Notepad because this tool does not properly format the field tags.
• Save to File: Tab-delimited (Win)
  • ASCII text file. Each field in the file is delimited by a tab. Compatible with the Microsoft^® Windows^® operating system.

• Save to File: Tab-delimited (Mac)

  • ASCII text file. Each field in the file is delimited by a tab. Compatible with the Apple Macintosh^® operating system.

• Save to File: Tab-delimited (Win, UTF-8)

  • Saves output data in a tab-delimited format with UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format - 8 bit) encoding and carriage return linefeeds. Compatible with the Microsoft^® Windows^® operating system.

• Save to File: Tab-delimited (Mac, UTF-8)

  • Saves output data in a tab-delimited format with UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format - 8 bit) encoding and carriage return linefeeds. Compatible with the Apple Macintosh^® operating system.

 

To create alerts, save searches you need to create a personal account.

Create a sign-in for Web of Science (top right corner of the landing page).

While optional, creating a sign-in allows you to:

• access Web of Science offsite (http://webofscience.com)
  • Roaming access is 6 months.
  • Sign in onsite to refresh roaming access for another 6 month period.
• save your searches
• set up search alerts and citation alerts
• save lists of records for later use
• sign in with the same credentials for InCites, EndNote online, and ResearcherID

 

Managing your Results: Saving to a Marked List & Exporting Options

 

The Marked List page stores records selected from your search results.  After marking records, you can save your Marked List and return to it later.  Save up to 50 Marked Lists with up to 50,000 records per list.  In order to save, you must be logged into your Web of Science personal profile.

Use the Marked List to:

• Store your search results.
• Group articles together you want to analyze.
• Create a custom set of items to export.
  • There are lots of export options - send to EndNote for later use in writing a paper, print, email or even export to InCites Benchmarking & Analytics for detailed citation analysis.

• Quick Reference Guide (pdf)

• Web of Science Essentials (1 hr 30 min):  Self-guided course covers everything from the fundamental principles to workflow functionality to enhance your research process.

• Web of Science user guide for researching a field (PDF)
• Web of Science Training (YouTube videos produced by Web of Science)