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Web of Science

Web of science is a collection of multidisciplinary databases and so useful for most researchers. this guide will show you how to use it to find the information you are looking for.

Smart Search

Smart Search is the default in Web of Science. You can toggle it off using the link on the homepage. If you are wanting to do a comprehensive or rigorous search we do not recommend that you use Smart Search. However, you may find it useful if you are new to a topic and wanting to get an overview of what has been published in that area. 

Using Smart Search means that you can type your query using your natural language rather than breaking your question down into keyword concepts. Web of Science then runs your query through two systems: a hidden Boolean search and an AI semantic/vector search. You can then choose if you want to see both sets of results or choose from the Semantic or Boolean ones. 

The results come in two tabs. Documents to see the articles and Researchers to see Web of Science's suggestions of people who have written on this topic. 

screenshot showing smart search results for search for 'use of generative ai for writing systematic reviews.' There is an arrow pointing to the box at the top of the results where you can choose if you want to see all results or just the boolean or semantic ones. There is a circle around the tabs where you can choose to see documents or researchers.

Translated Search

Smart Search supports simplified Chinese input. When you enter a search term in simplified Chinese, a language toggle will appear on search results page, allowing you to switch between English and simplified Chinese. On the search results page, all 50 titles will be automatically translated to Simplified Chinese. However, the abstracts will remain in English unless you click the translate button on an individual record. For the full record page, both the title and abstract will be translated automatically, but only if you choose to translate abstract.

Web of Science plan to extend translated search to other languages. 

screenshot showing the search for insulin and diabetes using Chinese characters. The results are in English but there's an arrow pointing to a toggle at the top of the results where you can choose to see the results in Chinese.