Searching Science Citation Index
Science Citation Indexis an index to majorjournals in the Sciences.Science Citation Indexonly index journal articles, not books or government publications.Only the major journals in a field are indexed by Science Citation Index.
To search Science Citation Index, a search strategy must be developed from subject terms, words that describe the topic of interest, and Boolean Operators, words that tell the computer how to perform the search. The Boolean operators used to search Science Citation Indexare: And, Or,Same, Not, * (Asterisk),() (Parentheses)and“” Quotation Marks.
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And
Same
Or
Not
* (Asterisk)
? (Question Mark)
$ (Dollar Sign)
() (Parentheses)
“” Quotation Marks
Retrieves records that contain all of the terms searched in any field of a record.
Retrieves records that contain all of the terms searched in one field of a record.
Retrieves records that contain either of the terms searched in any field of a record.
Eliminates records that contain one or more terms or meet certain conditions.
Serve as truncation symbols. Retrieve records that contain various forms of the word searched. It can also be used internally to search for various spellings of a word.
Determines the order of the search (words in parentheses will be searched before the other terms in a search).
Used to search phrases. Words in quotation marks will be searched exactly as they appear.
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Once a search has been performed, records can be reviewed on screen, downloaded to disk, e-mailed to your account or printed.When reviewing search results, the items that are particularly relevant can be marked so that only the most relevant items will be printed or downloaded. The title of the journal can be searched using the Locate a Journalsearch option on the Libraries’ web page or in WestCat, the Libraries’ online catalog.
Find it! WIU Libraries - All records in Science Citation Indexwill have a button that looks like this:
By clicking on this button, it is possible to link from a record in Science Citation Indexto the Libraries’ journal search system, which will provide information on whether the title is available in the WIU Libraries, and a link to the full text if available. If the journal is not available, a copy of the article can be requested through Interlibrary Loan.
Searching Science Citation Index
To perform a subject search in Science Citation Index, first connect to the Libraries’ web page ( then click on Select a Database, choose the letter S, and then click on the link to Science Citation Index. To perform a quick search, enter a search statement in the Quick Search box. Boolean operators should be used to combine search terms.
AND vs. SAME
Climate AND TopographyClimateSAMETopography
Climate AND VegetationClimate SAME Vegetation
Note: Searching using the SAME operator retrieves fewer records.
OR
ClimateSAME (Topography OR Relief)ClimateSAME (Vegetation OR Land Cover)
Note: Searching for two words with similar meanings (Topography or Relief, and Vegetation or Land Cover) could retrieve more records than just searching one term.
NOT
(ClimateChange or Global Warming) NOT Arctic
Organic NOT Food
* (Asterisk) – Used as a truncation symbol to search for all forms of a term.
Examples:
Organi*Finds: Organic, Organism, Organically
Pal*oclimatologyFinds: Paleoclimatology or Palaeoclimatology
Hydro*logyFinds: Hydrology or Hydrogeology
? (Question Mark) – Used as atruncation symbol to replace only one character.
Examples:
Climate?Finds: Climate or Climates, but not climatology or climatological
En?oblastFinds: Endoblast or Entoblast
$ (Dollar Sign) – Used as a truncation symbol to replace zero or one character.
Ground$water Finds: Groundwater, Ground Water or Ground-Water
Colo$rFinds: Color or Colour
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Sample Science Citation Index Record
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Citation Searching
Science Citation Indexcan also be used to search for articles that cite an earlier publication, in other words find recent articles that have included an earlier article in their bibliographies or references. Citation searching is particularly useful when there is an important article or publication that is important in a particular subject. The people who are citing that publication are probably doing research related to the same topic. Thus, it can be a very useful resource for doing research.
To do a citation search, click on the Cited Ref Searchlink above the search box. Enter as much information about the author of the article and where it appeared. Enter author names with the last name first and then the initials with no punctuation.
Examples:
Gould S*Watson J*Pauling L*
Then click the Search button.A list of possible articles by the author will appear. Identify the article of interest and click in the check box beneath the word Select.
Then click the Finish Search button. The articles that cite the publication of interest will be shown. The citing publications probably deal with a topic that is similar to the article of interest.
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