Title:
ISI Citation Databases (Web of Science)
Rationale for selection:
Having retrieved a very effective article in
relation to my question, I thought it would be a good idea to attempt to
find other articles which cited the aforementioned article. This
database provides a good means of searching a citations database, so I
decided to use it in this search.
Evaluation of source:
Format/means of access: Available on the
Web, via UNC Library’s Electronic Indexes and Databases list, http://unclib.lib.unc.edu/eid/eresources.html,
also available off campus with a valid 9 digit PID number.
Scope:
Content/topics covered: The ISI Citation Databases collectively index more than 8,000 high quality, peer-reviewed journals cover-to-cover, providing users with complete bibliographic data, searchable author abstracts when available in the science and social sciences source material, and cited references from the world's most influential journals*
Time period covered: 1980 to present, updated weekly.*
Types of material covered: The Web of Science provides Web access to the Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (formerly SciSearch, Social SciSearch, and Arts & Humanities Search). These databases provide access to numerous scholarly journals. (click here for a complete list)
Geographic/language coverage: not specified, though I would guess it is International in scope.
Authority: produced by the Institute for Scientific Information, very authoritative I would say. (http://www.isinet.com/)
Access points/indexing: Very well indexed. The database allows the searcher to search by author, title, or year of publication, within all 3 of the databases it covers.
Abstracts and Full Text Availability: Full citation is available for all citations, with abstracts for most, but not all citations. No full text is available.
Special Features: This database is fairly simple to search. Despite the dynamic nature of the search it does, there are not many options by which to search. One interesting feature of the database is an option which allows the user to save queries for use at a later time. This would be useful for someone searching for numerous different articles and/or authors. It also allows users to e-mail results to themselves, and offers an option which allows the user to view “related records” to articles which match the original search criteria. This is a useful feature in expanding a search.
Search strategy:
My search strategy for this database was very
simple. I searched for the article, “Running injuries. A review
of the epidemiological literature,” written by W. van Mechelen and published
in Sports Medicine in 1992.
Set 1: I began by searching for articles
which cited the author, “VAN MECHELEN W.” This returned 13 results,
none of which matched the cited article for which I was searching.
Set 2: I decided to specifiy the year of
publication, in addition to the author. This yielded no results.
I then ended the search, as it was evident that the article was either not cited by any works in the available databases.
Information found:
Unfortunately, my search in this database was
unfruitful. I had hoped to find articles which cited an article which
was very pertinent to my question, but I was unable to find any.
This is an interesting database, with a very useful purpose, but
it is important to realize that not all articles are cited by other articles,
and that this database is not all-inclusive.
*Information taken from vendor website, http://www.isinet.com