Research Tools: Web of Science - Citation Analysis Guide

Thursday 26 November 2015

Web of Science - Citation Analysis Guide

Source: http://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=282982&p=1888178

Introduction

The Web of Science database (composed of: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Science Citation Index Expanded) is THE original citation research source and along with Google Scholar is the most interdisciplinary and most comprehensive citation resource available to the UM community. Web of Science extracts the citation information from the articles in over 6,000 journals from almost every discipline.

But ...

A citation search in the Web of Science is not a complete citation search:

Only citations from a set of 7,500+, primarily English-language, journals are counted.
Citation
data from books, conference proceedings, dissertation & theses,
patents and technical reports are not included in the database;
therefore fields that publish heavily in the journal literature (such as
the sciences) are better covered than those that don't (such as
History).
Subjects
are not covered evenly by date; the science journals are covered much
farther back in time than are the journals in the arts, engineering,
humanities, and social sciences.
Some subject areas are poorly covered including business and education.

This guide will show how to use the Web of Science to:

Find the Citation Count for a Publication

Access Web of Science (sign in for off-campus use, if necessary)
Click on the blue arrow to open a pull-down menu and select "Cited Reference Search."
In
the "Cited Work" box , enter in the journal name and click the search
button. Use the journal abbreviation list, linked below the search box
to find the correct abbreviation of the journal name you are searching.
Example: enter J Aging Stud for Journal of Aging Studies
Run the search. Once the results are posted, click on Select All and then Finish Search.
The Results number should indicate how many articles in Web of Science cited the journal. Please note:
The citation count will only include the number of times the
publication was cited by articles from the journals that Web of Science
covers. WOS does not count
citations from every journal published
around the world, nor does it count citations from books, conference
proceedings, dissertations/theses, patents, technical reports or other
types of publications.

Determine What Journal Articles Have Cited a Publication

Follow steps 1-5 above,
marking all the citations of interest by clicking in the box on the
left for each item (or using the "Select Page" button to select all
items on the page).
Click
on the "Finish Search" button, located at the top and bottom of the
page, to retrieve the list of articles that cite the author's
publications you selected.
Use
the "Analyze Results" feature to determine any trends in the citing set
of articles; the "Analyze Results" link is located in the upper right
of the results list.

Analyze by:
- Author to see if a particular person repeatedly cites the publication.
- Publication
  Year to see when the majority of citations occurred, if citations are
  evenly spread out, and/or if the publication is no longer being cited.
- Source Title to see if citations are coming from a particular journal.
- Web of Science Categories to see which fields find this publication of interest.

If you would prefer a more visual representation of citation analysis, try the new citation mapping feature.

Be Aware: Citing publications that are from the conference proceedings module, are not part of the data in the citation analysis reports.

Create a Citation Map for a Publication

For
those who prefer a more visual presentation of the data in the Analyze
Report feature, a new citation mapping feature was introduced in July
2008 which will display a map of both forward and backward citation
analysis for a single article.

Click on the title of any publication within a results list
On the full record screen, click on the “Citation Map” link (in the area of the screen between the citation and the abstract). Use the options in the “Appearance” menu to change the screen display.

Be Aware:

Citation mapping requires the latest version of JAVA and pop-up blockers must be turned off.
Citation
mapping, at least in the beta version, is only available for a
specific article; citation mapping cannot be done for a set of results.

Eliminate Self-Citations From a Citation Count

If you have not already done so, follow steps 1-7 above; this will create a set of the citing references.
Click on the "Search" link located at the top of the page, in the orange box.
Select
Basic Search. In the search box, put in the author's name with
lastname, firstinitial* (Example: smith j*) and change the "in" box at
the right from "Topic" to "Author"; then click on the "Search" button at
the bottom.
When the search results are displayed, click on the "Back to Search" button, and select "Advanced Search" in the pull-down menu.
In
the search box type: #A NOT #B (where "A" is the number of the search
for the "cited author" - i.e., the answer set for step 7 above - and
where "B" is the number of the search for the author - the answer set
for step 11 above). Click on the "Search" button at the bottom.
Scroll
the resulting page down to the "Search History" section to see how many
items are now in the new results set - this number will be the citation
count minus the self-citations. To display these citing references,
click on the citation count in the "Results" column on the left.

Get a Citation Analysis Report for an Author

The Citation Report feature
displays bar charts for the number of items published each year and the
number of citations each year, plus counts for the average number of
citations per item, the number of citations per year per publication,
average number of citations per year per publication, and the H-index.

Be Aware: The
Citation Report only analyzes the correct citations to the author's
journal articles from the journals covered in the Web of Science;
variant-citations are not covered, nor can an analysis be done on an
author's books, conference papers, patents, other non-journal documents
or from journals not covered by the Web of Science.

Access Web of Science (sign in for off campus use, if necessary)
Use the "Search" feature to find all the articles by an author.
Recommended
search: Use the author name with first initial, then add "OR author's
name with first and middle initials". Example: smith j OR smith jr
On the results page, click on the "Create Citation Report" link at the top upper right of the list.

Create a Citaton Analysis Report for a Department or Research Center

Be Aware: The
Citation Report only analyzes the correct citations to the unit's
journal articles published in the journals covered by the Web of
Science; variant-citations are not covered, nor can an analysis be done
on the unit's books, conference papers, patents, other non-journal
documents or on articles from journals not covered by the Web of
Science.

Access Web of Science (sign in for off campus use, if necessary)
Use
the "Search" feature to find all the articles by members of the unit;
this is generally difficult to do with just one single search
statement.

Use any or all of the following methods to find the unit's journal articles:
- If
  there is a small set of articles you want to analyze, do a search for
  each article, searching by either the words in the title or a
  combination search for first author plus words in the title. Use the
  Advanced Search feature to "OR" the sets together to get one combined
  set that includes all the articles. Display the combined results set
  and click on the "Create Citation Report" link at the top upper right of
  the list.
- Do
  an author search for each individual in the unit. Select "Author
  Search" in the pull-down menu. Use the author name with first initial,
  then then click on the "Add Author Name Variant" button to enter the
  author's name with first and middle initials. Example: smith j or smith jr
  After entering the author's name, click on the "Select Research Domain" button and select one or more research domains.
  After selecting research domains, click on the "Select Organization" button to select one or more research organizations.
  Some
  authors work for more than one institution/unit during their career and
  some are appointed to more than one unit at a time. Whether the
  citation researcher finds this to be a PRO or a CON depends on if s/he
  is trying to find everything the author wrote or just what was written
  for a specific university/unit.
- If
  you have multiple sets of answers, use the Advanced Search feature to
  "OR" the individual results sets together to get one combined set. Once
  you have all the results in a single set of references, click on the
  "Create Citation Report" link at the top upper right of the list.

Determine the Most Highly Cited Papers for an Author

There are two methods for determining the most highly cited papers by an author:

Less Accurate but Easier & Quicker
- Access Web of Science (sign in for off campus use, if necessary)
- Use the "Basic Search" feature to find all the articles by an author.
  Recommended
  search: Use the author name with first initial, then add "OR author's
  name with first and middle initials". Example: smith j or smith jr
- On
  the results page, change the “Sort by” box to (upper right of the list)
  to “Times Cited-Highest to Lowest”; the articles that then appear at
  the top of the list are the author’s most cited.
- Be aware: Although
  easy to do, this method does not account for variant-citations and only
  includes the author’s articles from the journals covered by the Web of
  Science.
More Accurate but Harder & Time-Consuming
- Follow steps 1-5 above, finding all the correct citations and variant-citations for each of the author’s papers.
- Use
  whatever method you find most comfortable (paper, index/flash cards,
  word processor, spreadsheet, etc.) to keep track of the counts for each
  paper and when finished, sort the papers by the “times cited” count.

Determine the Most Highly Cited Papers for a Journal

This method can only be used for journals
covered by the Web of Science; variant citations are not included in the
citation determination.

Access Web of Science (sign in for off campus use, if necessary)
Select "Basic Search." Enter the journal name (use
the journal’s full name) and select "Publication Name" in the pull-down
menu. Click "Search."
On
the results page, change the "Sort by" box (upper right of the list) to
"Times Cited-Highest to Lowest"; the articles that then appear at the
top of the list are the journal's most cited.

Set Up a Citation Alert for a Journal Article

To be notified whenever an article of interest is cited, use the "Citation Alert" feature. This feature is only available for articles that appeared in a journal covered by the Web of Science.

Access Web of Science (sign in for off campus use, if necessary)
Login to your personal account using the "Sign In" link at the top of the page.
Citation
Alerts require registration (free); to register, click on the "Sign In"
link at the top of the page, in the left column, click on the
"Register" link and follow instructions.
Use the "Search feature" to find the article.
On the results list, click on the item's title to display the full record.
In the right-hand column, click on the "Create Citation Alert" button. Alerts are automatically set for one year.
To
remove an alert, click on the "My Citation Alerts" link at the top of
the page; when your alerts are displayed, click on the "Modify Settings"
button and mark which articles you wish to remove from your alerts.

1. Web of Science - Citation Analysis Guide - Research Guides at University of Michigan Library

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