Web of Science consists of citation databases in sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. The multidisciplinary content covers scholarly journals, conference proceedings, books, book series, and more. The Web of Science Core Collection includes:
View steps to search Web of Science by clicking on the links below.
Step 1. Type your search term in the text box.
Step 2. The default setting is searching All Fields. You can choose a specific field from the drop-down menu. The option Topic means searching the Title, Abstract, and Keywords fields of the search records. To conduct a search on Title & Abstract, select Title from the drop-down menu.
Step 3. Click +Add row.
Step 4. On the new row, select Or from the pull down menu. Select Abstract to add the abstract search. Copy the same keywords to the new box and run the search.
You may also choose to search the search concept one by one.
Step 1. Type your search term for the first search concept in the text box. Select the search field from the drop-down menu, for example, to conduct a search on Title & Abstract field, select Title from the drop-down menu.
Step 2. Click +Add row. On the new row, select Or from the pull down menu. Select Abstract to add the abstract search. Copy the same keywords to the new search box and run the search.
Step 3. Now you will see the search results for the first search concept. Click on the Search icon at the top left of the main menu bar to return to the main search page.
Step 4. Type your search term for the second search concept in the text box and run the search.
Step 5. Now you will see the search results for the second search concept. Click on the Search icon at the top left of the main menu bar to return to the main search page. And select Advanced Search.
Step 6. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the Session Queries which shows the search history. Select the search queries and click Combine Sets.
Step 7. Select AND / OR Boolean operators to combine the search queries.
Step 8. The combined results is added to a new search row above. Click on the no. of search results to view the full list of search results.
►You can limit or filter your search results using the refinement panel on the left of the page. There are different options to refine your results, for example, you can limit by Highly Cited Papers, Hot Papers, Open Access Papers, Publication Years, Web of Science Categories, Document Types (i.e. article, review article, letter, editorial material, meeting abstract, etc.), and more.
►The limit options are different with other medical databases that some options such as sex, age groups, human or animal, type of publication (case study, clinical trials, review articles, systematic review, meta-analysis) are not available.
View Full Text & Export Search Results
Step 1. Press the Findit@CUHK Library button for the full text of the article.
Step 2. Press the Export icon for more options on the search records, for example,
►Select EndNote desktop or RIS (other reference software) to export selected (or all records) to citation management tools.
►Select Email to send selected (or all records) to email inbox, or Excel to export selected records (or all records) to excel file.
Step 3. Select the relevant search records to export.
Save & Share Search History & Run Saved Search
Step 1. If you would like to share your search query with others, select Copy query link.
Step 2.To save the search query, select Create Alert (next to the search box). It will prompt you to login to your personal account of Web of Science.
Step 3. Give a name for the search. If you wish to save the search but not to receive email alerts, uncheck the Send me email alerts box and select CREATE.
Step 4. To run the saved search, sign in to your Web of Science account. Select the bell icon (for the saved searches and alerts) on the left sidebar. Then click Rerun Search.
You may also choose to export the search history in different formats.
Step 5. Go to Advanced Search and scroll down to Session Queries and click Export. Choose export either plain text file, PDF, or Excel.
Step 6. Select the relevant search queries and click Export. By default, the export content includes the name of database, the query, the date running the search, and the no. of results for each search query.
