Tips for using Web of Science and Biosis Previews
Tutorials on Web of Science are available on the provider's site.
Here are some tips to get the most from using these databases:
- You can switch from one database to the other by using the drop down menu Search in: (underneath DOCUMENTS) on the homepage of Web of Science
- You can search in both databases simultaneously by clicking on Search in: and selecting All Databases. Note: you may obtain more complete results (with a little more work) by searching in each separately, because searching in all limits the number of fields searched.
- Web of Science allows you to do cited reference searching, (sometimes referred to as snowballing) enabling you to search for publications that have cited a publication of interest. Beside each publication in your search results, you will see a list of References (what the authors used in the writing of that paper) and Citations (authors that have since cited this work). If stubs for these papers are available in Web of Science, they will be hyperlinked!
Unique search fields only available in Biosis Previews
- There are unique search fields (where you enter keywords/search terms/etc.) that are available when a search in only Biosis Previews is selected.
- Examples of search fields unique to Biosis Previews include: Taxa Notes, PubMed ID, Chemical and Biochemical, Taxanomic Data (e.g., organism name or classifier)
