Web of Science® contains the names of all authors and editors associated with a source document such as:
- Journal articles
- Conference proceedings papers
- Book authors
- Book editors
- And more ...
Enter the name of an author to search the Author(s) field within a record. Enter complete names or partial names using wildcards (* ? $).
When searching the Author field for records, be aware that the system displays author and editor names in various fields within a record.
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Journal author names appear in the Author(s) field within a record.
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Book author names appear in the Book Author(s) field within a record.
- Book editor names appear in the Editor(s) field within a record.
Guidelines for Entering Author Names
Format
Enter the last name first, followed by a space and up to five initials. You may also enter last names without initials. For example:
Driscoll C* finds Driscoll C, Driscoll CF, Driscoll CM, Driscoll CMH, and so on.
Driscoll CM* finds Driscoll CM, Driscoll CMH.
Driscoll finds all authors/editors with the last name Driscoll.
You may see two versions of an author name in Full Records of articles published in 2006 and later. One is the last name followed by initials. The other in parentheses is the full name. Be aware that you must still search for an author by last name and initials. First names are not searchable.
Case
Use upper, lower, or mixed case. For example, Lee (or lee) is the same as LEE.
Wildcards
Enter a last name followed by an asterisk (*) to find all authors with that name. For example:
Parkins * finds Parkins A, Parkins AS, Parkins E, Parkins EJ, Parkins, RN, and so on.
Parkins finds the same names. It may also find additional records where Parkins appears without any initials.
Use the question mark (?) or dollar sign ($) to search for variations on a name. For example:
Bens?n finds Bensen or Benson.
BArthold$ finds Barthold, Bartholdi, or Bartholdy.
Hof$man$ finds Hofman, Hofmann, Hoffman, or Hoffmann.
Boolean Search Operators
Separate two or more names by the search operators AND, OR, and NOT. For example:
Herlert A* AND Vogel M* finds records of articles authored by both Herlert A and Vogel M.
Herlert A* OR Vogel M* finds records of articles authored by either Herlert A or Vogel M (or both Herlert A and Vogel M).
Herlert A* NOT Vogel M* finds records in which Herlert A appears but not Vogel M.
Particles
Search for surnames containing particles with and without a space after the particle. Example: de Bruyn A* OR deBruyn A*
Apostrophes
Last names containing an apostrophe should be searched with and without the apostrophe. For example, Paget's OR Pagets finds records containing Paget's and Pagets.
Diacritical Marks
Diacritical marks are not searchable. Search for variants of names that contain diacritical marks in the original.
The name Schröder may appear in the database as Schroder or Schroeder. Search for both variants. Example: Schroder OR Schroeder
Asian Names
Asian names appear in the database exactly as they do in the source document. It is advisable to search for all variations on Asian names. Example: Zhuang J OR Zhang J OR Jun Z
Author Finder
Use Author Finder to find variants of the same author name or to distinguish one author from another by field of research and/or address.
You access Author Finder by clicking the Author Finder link that appears under the Author field.
Author Index
Click the author index icon to access a list of author names that you can add to your query. Using the Author Index allows you to select the correct spelling or variant spellings of a name.
Search Tips
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To search for anonymous authors, enter anon in the Author field.
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To search on the name AND, OR, NOT, and SAME, enclose the name in quotation marks. Example: "Or"
Author Names 1964-1975
When you view the Full Record of articles in data years 1964-1975, you will see that surnames containing more than eight characters have been truncated. For example, the name Wilkinson, PN appears as WILKINSO.PN. When you search, enter the full surname of the author. The search engine automatically adjusts for data variations. See Author Names for more information.
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