Web of Science: Home

Web of Science is an online platform for searching a number of different citation indices. The focus of this guide, the Web of Science Core Collection, is a large interdisciplinary citation database that includes citations from the following sources:

• Science Citation Index Expanded
• Social Sciences Citation Index
• Arts & Humanities Citation Index
• Emerging Sources Citation Index
• Book Citation Index
• Conference Proceedings Citation Index

The Web of Science Core Collection includes over 21,000 peer-reviewed journals, over 226,000 conferences, and over 126,000 books.

Diagram via Web of Science Group - Web of Science Core Collection: Journal Evaluation Process and Selection Criteria

Web of Science, like Scopus and Google Scholar, is a large and cross-disciplinary citation database. These types of databases connect citations to their references, as well as citing articles that come later. Most citation indices also measure bibliometrics, a set of methods to quantitatively analyze academic literature (e.g. impact factor, h-index).

Web of Science enables you to find newer papers that reference a paper or author you already know about. You might want to do this in order to:

• find more papers on a topic
• trace how an idea has been confirmed, applied, extended or corrected in later publications
• see which other researchers are citing your work or the work of your colleagues
• find citation numbers and metrics to report on job or grant applications, evaluations, etc.

Three major databases allow for this type of interdisciplinary citation searching: Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and Google Scholar. Since these databases vary in what they cover, their search features, and their citation analysis tools, the best database to choose depends on your personal preferences and your needs.