Social Sciences Citation Index
What is the Social Science Citation Index?
SSCI is an indexing and abstracting service for close to 2000 scholarly journals in all areas of the social sciences. It also provides citation information that indicates where and how often an author or article has been cited in the literature. You can access the the full-text of many of the articles by clicking the Find it @ Harvard " button associated with each entry.
Getting Started
You can access the Social Science Citation Index from the KSG Library homepage or from the "Find-Resources" page on the Harvard Libraries portal. SSCI is a part of the ISI Web of Science, which, in turn is contained in the ISI Web of Knowledge. Knowledge.
The Opening Screen
(1) Start with the "Database(s) Selection and Time Span" section on the lower portion of the screen. On the left side , under "Citation Databases", un-check the boxes in front of the Science Citation Index and the Arts & Humanities citation index in order to search only the Social Science Citation Index.
(2) From the date selection options on the right side, use the buttons to select one of the following: latest updates, a single year, or a date range. After clicking the appropriate button, use the associated drop down menu to select the specific time period to search.
(3) Go up to the "Select a Search Option" area to choose the type of search you want to perform. Choose "general search" to look for articles on a subject or by an author. Choose "cited ref search" to look for articles that cite an author or an article. Click "advanced search" for a screen with options for a complex search. "
Search features
Searching by Topic
Enter the keywords describing your subject in the "topic" box. Use * as a wild card symbol when appropriate.
Topic:
wom*n and leader*
(retrieves publications referring to either women or woman along with leader, leaders or leadership)
Limiting
Searches can be limited by language and document type. Pull-down menus for setting limits are near the bottom of each search screen. Two particularly useful document type limits are "article" and "book review".
Searching by Source Title
Titles of source publications often appear in a highly abbreviated form. To find the abbreviations of journals included in the database, take advantage of the "source list" link next to the "source title" box.
Searching by Author
Only authors' last names and initials are included in the database. First names are not used. To find articles by a specific author, enter in the "author"box the last name, followed by one or more initials. The wildcard symbol can help if you are not sure of the initials.
Author:
summers l*
(retrieves articles by Lawrence H. Summers- -and by anyone else with the same initials. He is sometimes listed as Summers L and sometimes as Summers LH.)
To make your search more specific, you can enter terms in both the "author" and the "address" boxes.
Author:
wilson wj Address:
harvard or chicago (Retrieves articles by William Julius Wilson written during his affiliations with both Harvard and the University of Chicago.)
Searching by Author Affiliation (address)
Authors' organizational affiliations and addresses are included in the database. To search by organization names and/or addresses, use the "address" box on the search form. Since these names and locations are often highly abbreviated, use the link to the "abbreviations list" to find some that are commonly used. Use of the wildcard symbol, *, is also helpful.
To make your search as specific as possible, include more than one than one term from the author's organizational affiliation. Use the "same" connector between the parts of the organization's name to make sure they appear in the same address.
Address:
harvard same kennedy
Searching for Book Reviews
Terms from both the author's name and the title of the book should be entered in the "topic" box. Then, select "book review" from the pull down menu in the "setting limits" section near the bottom of the search page.
Topic:
nye and soft (Retrieves book reviews of Joseph Ny'es book, Soft Power, the Means to Success in World Politics.)
Cited Reference Searching
To find publications which have cited a known work, use the "Cited Ref Search". Enter as much information as you can into the boxes on the search form. Keep in mind that the "cited author" field accepts only last names and initials. The titles in the "cited work" field are often highly abbreviated. Journal abbreviations can be found by clicking the "list" link next to the "cited work" box. For titles of books and monographs, however, it is necessary to try various possibilities.
Cited Author:
putnam r*
Cited Work:
bowling* Cited Year:
2000
(retrieves list of publications that have cited the 2000 edition of Robert Putnam's book, Bowling Alone.)
Marking, Downloading, and Printing
Creating a marked list of retrieved items for later downloading and/ or printing is a three- step process:
- Click the box in front of each item you select for marking.
- When you are finished selecting items, click the "submit
marks" button located both near the top and bottom
of the screen.
- To retrieve your list of marked records, click the "marked
list" button at the top of the page.
Once you retrieve your marked items, you can specify what fields you want to display and how you want the titles sorted. Please note: The default display fields are author, title, and source only. If you want to include abstracts, you must indicate that on the check off list.
Marked items can be printed , emailed, saved to file or exported to reference software.
When finished, be sure to logoff by clicking the red "Log Out" button at the top of the page.
Ellen Isenstein
Kennedy School Library
March 2001, Revised Nov. 2005