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Web of Science (ISI)

Web access to ISI citation databases (Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index). Contains citations to articles from nearly 8,500 of the most prestigious, high impact research journals in the world. The ability to search by cited reference allows the user to uncover research that influenced an author’s work or to navigate forward in time to discover a paper’s impact on current research. 1998-. Updated weekly. For years previous to 1998, print volumes are available: Science Citation Index (URI Ref. Z7401 .S365, 1961-1996); Social Sciences Citation Index (URI Ref. Z7161 .S65 1969-1997); and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (URI Ref. Z1215 .A76222, 1977-1995).

To access Web of Science, select it from the list of reference databases at http://www.uri.edu/library/ reference_databases/title.html .

General Information: You can search all three ISI databases simultaneously, or you can select the database most appropriate for your topic. The available search options are: General, Cited Reference, and Advanced Search. Before conducting a search, select a timespan to search within. Web of Science offers three selections (seen below).

The results list presents the basic citation as well as links to other pertinant information. For example: click on the article title to see the full record. Below the basic citation click on the number after “Times Cited” to see who has cited this article. Also, below the basic citation, the link button will search for the journal holdings, whether available online or through the HELIN Catalog.

One can mark the selected records and print, save, export, or email up to 500 citations.

If you have any questions regarding any feature of the database, a HELP button is located in the upper left corner of the database (not shown).

Web of Science Home Page: The three search options and the three databases.

Cited Reference Search: What differentiates Web of Science from other databases is that, instead of looking for articles on a topic, you can use Web of Science to answer the following questions: What past research contributed to the creation of this article? How has this article influenced subsequent research? What is the connection — the shared sources — between this article and other articles?

The Cited Reference Search Page.

The results list tells you how many times author’s work has been used by others to support their research. Notice that full records exist for articles outside of any ISI database’s time constriction (1998-). Web of Science is unique in containing the full records of articles that exist outside of its scope.

The list of the author's works and how many times each article has been cited.
The list of the author’s works and how many times each article has been cited.

Clicking on the article’s link will take the user to the Full Record, containing links and abstract. There, one can find what previous research influenced the author’s work (1) and how the research influenced others (2). Finally, one can investigate the research connection between authors by clicking on Find Related Records (3). For more information regarding related articles, click on the information symbol (4).

The Full Record.

Basically, when you use the Related Records search, you are looking for a subject relationship between the article you found (referred to as the parent record) and other articles. The more shared references, the closer the subject bond is. The Related Records search is an extremely convenient method to locate more articles similar to the one that came closest to your subject search.

Again, for more information relating to Cited Reference Searching and any other aspect of Web of Science, click on the HELP button in the upper left corner of the database (not shown).

The Related Records Summary Page.

If you have any questions on how to use Web of Science, please contact the Reference Desk at (401) 874-2653.

BTG, 6/05