The Web of Science Core Collection covers more than 22,000 journals across the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities disciplines across its databases. It includes additional citation types like data sets, patents, conference proceedings, and books, dating back to 1900.
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Web of Science Tutorial provided by Duke Medical Center Library
Web of Science Tutorials provided by Clarivate
Smart Search
The Smart Search function became the default search option in Web of Science in 2025. All existing search functionalities including Basic Search (now Fielded Search), Query Building, Cited Reference Search and Structure Search are available in Advanced Search.
Smart Search uses AI-based natural language processing to try and interpret your search beyond the exact search terms you typed in the search box. It might be a good place to start if you are doing a quick discovery search but if you want more control over your search, or need to do a more reproducible search, you will need to use the Advanced Search.
When you use Smart Search, you can see how it processed your query by clicking the "See how we processed your query" link which will show you the translated search with Boolean Operators (see screenshot below). You can do some very limited editing by clicking the edit button. At this point, you might feel the need to do a more sophisticated search! Click the Advanced Search link on top of the page.
Basic Searching Instructions
Web of Science does not have subject headings. You can search by keywords easily in the Basic Search.
Searching the Fielded Search (formerly the Basic search)
1. Enter words or phrases that describe your topic in the search box. The dropdown box in front of the query box will allow you to search for terms in different fields of the database, such as a Title or Keyword search combined with an author search. To widen your search as much as possible, select All Fields.
2. You can click +Add Row and add additional words or phrases in subsequent boxes. Be sure to choose the correct term to combine the boxes:
OR will find references with any of the search terms. Use OR to broaden your search.
AND will find references with all the search terms. Use AND to narrow your search.
3. Click search.
4. View your search history by expanding the menu on the left side of the page, and then click History.
5. If you would like to search each concept one at a time or combine multiple rows you have already searched, you can! From the History page, you can navigate to the Advanced Search, which allows you to combine multiple search queries.
Limiting/Refining your Combined Search Results
Web of Science has extensive filtering options.
The results filters are on the left side of the results page.
Common filters include Publication Years and Document Types (see image to right).
Sorting Results
Web of Science also has extensive sorting options: see image below. Choose Sort By: at the top right corner of the results box and choose from the dropdown. Popular sorting options include Relevance, Date: newest first, and Citations: highest first. Remember, not all highly cited papers are reliable or accurate papers! Use your best judgement.
Saving your Searches
1. To easily send the search query (to yourself or others), click "copy query link" underneath the search bar at the top of the results page.
2. To save searches or citations within Web of Science, first create an account by clicking the purple "Register" button at the top right of the page.
3. To save the search query, click the Create Alert button to the right side of the search query. You can click "Rerun search" to run the search again in the future.
4. Web of Science allows you to save the entire results list, a range of citations, all citations on one page, or specific citations from a search. To save the entire results list, a range of citations, or all citations on one page, simply click the Add to Marked List button and fill out the form as desired. To save specific citations, click the radio buttons next to those citations, then click the Add to Marked List button.
5. You can access your Marked Lists and Saved Searches from the menu on the left side of the page (you may have to expand the menu).
Web of ScienceWeb of Knowledge Account
Create search alert
Create citation alert