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Database quick guides: Web of Science

Quick references of the most central databases in the University of Oulu

Web of Science

Web of Science

DESCRIPTION EXAMPLES

Truncation and wildcard

- anywhere in a word

* replaces 0...n characters

? replaces a single character

$ replaces 0..1 characters

steel*
> steel, steels, steelmaking

*archaeolog*
> archaeological, osteoarchaeology

organi?ation*

steel$
> steel, steels  

Plurals etc.

The singular form of a word finds plurals and alternative forms of the search term and spelling variations (e.g. US and UK spelling).

It doesn't work with phrases and wildcards.

run
> run, running, ran

loud
> loud, louder, loudest

color
> color, colour

color*
> color, colors, colorful
Phrases  Double quotation marks
- wildcards * and ? can be used
- wildcard $ cannot be used inside the quotation marks
- in phrases the singular form of a word does not retrieve the plural form		 "bio oil*"
 

Boolean operators
AND, OR, NOT

- are not case sensitive

Implicit AND operator when you enter two or more adjacent terms.

bio oil* energ*
> bio AND oil* AND energ*

Without parentheses operator precedence is:
1. NEAR/x 2. SAME 3. NOT 4. AND 5. OR

Use parentheses to override operator precedence. The expression inside the parentheses is executed first.

(biodiesel* OR "bio oil*") AND energ*
Proximity operators NEAR/x  regardless of the order, n ≥ 0
 

energ* NEAR/3 poli*

(brit* OR "united kingdom") NEAR/5 "european union"
SAME  can be used in Address field only

oulu SAME univ* 
Tips Topic searches the fields:  Title, Abstracts, Author Keywords, Keywords Plus®