Finding Citations - Web of Science

For those who need to look for citation counts for authors, here is a quick handy guide for using Web of Science.

This guide also appears on the IfA Library Website in the FAQs page.


Hamilton Library subscribes to Web of Science, which is "a multidisciplinary index covering the journal literature of the sciences (Science Citation Index Expanded) as well as both the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Approximately 70% of the records have author abstracts. Online coverage from 1980 to present."

To access Web of Science, click here or go to the IfA Library homepage. Under Quik Info, go to Bibliographic Indexes and scroll down to Web of Science. This will take you to Hamilton's Electronic Resources Gateway access to electronic journals and databases.

After clicking on "Web of Science" you will need to log in as you would for electronic journals (login with your UHM ID barcode and last name OR your email@hawaii.edu account note: not your IfA email).

Near the top of the page are three boxes. Click on the "Cited Ref Search" box. At the search page, choose the databases you wish to search and the timespan. Below that are "Cited Author", "Cited Work", and "Cited Year(s)" search boxes. NOTE: Cited Work is not consistent, so this search parameter does not work very well.

You can also limit the year of publication in the "Cited Year(s)" box.

Follow the examples given for each search parameter (e.g. putting an author's entire first name hampers results. Use only the first initial).

Results will be a list of the author's work by publication (for common surnames, the list may be exceptionally long). Check all that apply and be sure to check all pages.

Click the "Finish Search" button near the top.

The results are the citations of articles that had included the "cited author" in their bibliographies. Reverse chronology is the default.

Select the records you want by checking their boxes to the left. In the Output Records box on the right, select by record number and email the results, save or print them.

For a large number of records, you can select all, email them, and dump them into EndNote or other software for easy control, sorting, etc.


Should you have any questions, comments, tips to pass on, etc., in using this resource please don't hesitate to contact the librarians.



And as always, don't forget to visit the FAQs page for questions about other IfA library resources! It is ever-evolving, so if you have a question that's not listed, let us know!