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Science Citation Index: Why Teach?

Why search (and teach) SCI? Four main reasons:

  1. Find articles on a subject — based on words in article titles in journals covered by SCI.
    • Does not do extensive indexing CA does.
    • Useful to compare and contrast a new index/information source with one students already know.
  2. Locate articles by authors.
    • Often appears more quickly than in CA.
    • Covers Abstracts of Papers Presented at ACS Meetings, which CA only began in 1996.#
  3. Locate articles that have cited, in their footnotes, a given article after it was published (i.e. Citation searching).
    Value of “citation searching”:
    • This is an excellent and unique way to extend a search forward in time.
    • Determine who has done research on a topic since publication of a specific paper.
    • Has this method been improved?
    Select a seminal article, or one that is especially useful. Search on the first author, only. Articles as old as 40 years are still cited — ex. articles by Einstein, Linus Pauling (bonds, Vitamin C, etc.) are still cited in 1995).
  4. Locate “related” articles in CD-ROM and some online versions. “Related” articles share the same footnotes, so are likely to be on the same topic.
    Also, identify:
    • Review articles
    • Author’s address

Because SCI covers approximately 3,000 of the most important journals in all science, engineering, math, and some medical areas, it is an excellent source for interdisciplinary topics.

Teaching technique:

  • Students understand citation searching more readily if a sample article of interest to them is selected. Bring article to class and comment on the technique of following up on footnotes. Then, by checking this article as a Cited Article, can locate more recent articles on that topic.
  • Sample practice questions are attached.
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