ABSTRACT
The Web of Science, an online database of bibliographic information produced by Thomson Reuters— draws its real value from the scholarly citation index at its core. By indexing the cited references from each paper as a separate part of the bibliographic data, a citation index creates a pathway by which a paper can be linked backward in time to the body of work that preceded it, as well as linked forward in time to its scholarly descendants. This entry provides a brief history of the development of the citation index, its core functionalities, and the way these unique data are provided to users through the Web of Science.
