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University of California San Francisco

Nursing: Web of Science Search Tips

A guide to finding and managing nursing information for teaching, research and evidence-based nursing practice.

Web of Science Search Tips

Web of Science is a multi-disciplinary database, including psychosocial-related literature. It is recommended to use for nursing research.

Basic Search TIPS:

Run a Subject Search Using the Basic Search Interface.

  1. Use Basic Search. Run a subject/topic search using keywords.
  2. Use AND, OR, " " quotation for an exact phrase search, * used as a wild card  (teen* will retrieve teen OR teens OR teenagers OR teenager) e.g. "mental health" AND immigrant* AND (teen* OR adolescent* OR adolescence) AND minority

        3. Use Limit/Filter options (Highly Cited in Field, publication years, document types, review; language, source titles) to refine results. 

            TIPS: Use Highly Cited filter to find highly relevant studies on a given topic.

          

Pearl Growing/Snowballing is an effective way to identify more relevant studies. 

  1. After you find a key article from PubMed or other databases, you may use WoS features such as Citing and Cited References and related articles to find more relevant articles. Simply, copy and paste the title of a key article in the search box with a search option of TITLE or TOPIC.