Web of Science Basics

Web of Science is a database for searching the scholarly literature. Specifically, it’s composed of several sub-databases, which can all be searched together (or independently, if you’d rather):

• Science Citation Index Expanded
• Social Science Citation Index
• Arts & Humanities Citation Index
• Conference Proceedings Citation Index
• Book Citation Index
• Emerging Sources Citation Index (2015-present)
• Current Chemical Reactions (1985-present)

Web of Science is mainly used for finding scholarly articles in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities, drawn from over 20,000 current and historical journals dating back to 1900. As the list above indicates, though, it also contains some information on conference proceedings and books. Note that Web of Science indexes mostly English-language materials, and that while its coverage is broad, it’s not complete - there are many journals that it does not index. Web of Science is a good database to use when you’re starting a project and aren’t certain which disciplines might intersect with your research question, or when you know that your research question is broadly interdisciplinary.