In this part of the course we show you how to find articles on a particular topic, within Web of Science. Topics covered are:
These are the default settings in Web of Science:
You can search Web of Science in several ways. The basic search is the default:
On the startpage of Web of Science you find one search bar (you can add more by clicking the link Add row). You select a search field in the drop down menu at the right side.
You can search by, for example:
To combine search fields these search operators are used in the search screen:
AND | All search terms must occur in the search results. |
OR | At least one search term must occur. This is useful when you use synonyms. |
NOT | Excludes records containing a given search term. |
These options can be selected in the dropdown menu’s between the search bars, but you can also use search operators within a search box, for example “social media” AND friend*. Use quotation marks to search for exact phrases in topic or title searches.
Truncation can be used to control plurals and variant spellings.
* | Any number of characters, for example friend* gives also friends, friendship, friendly. |
$ | To replace zero or 1 character, for example colo$r gives color and colour. |
? | To replace 1 character, for example wom?n gives women and woman. |
In the Advanced Search two extra search operators are available:
SAME | Can be used in Address searches – the entered terms appear in the same address. In other searches SAME works like AND. |
NEAR/n | Finds records where the search terms are within n number of words of each other. If you use NEAR without the /n this is interpreted as NEAR/15: the terms joined by NEAR are within 15 words of each other. |