Using Web of Science to study the growth of an area of research

[Carol Brach]

Hello everyone, I am brand new to this list and appreciate the 
opportunity to ask a question.

I would like to validate data that I retrieved from Web of Science, 
Science Ed.

If you do a "search for" a topic on the main search page, and use the 
timespan limit to limit retrieval to one year only (eg. 1991 - 1991) at 
the very end of the results page, in small print you see "XXXX records 
matched your query of the XXX,XXX,XXX in the data limits you selected".

I have been assured means that XXX,XXX,XXX is the total number of 
articles that were included in the WOS Sci Ed database for that year.

Thus it is possible to get a simple ratio between the number of total 
articles and the number of articles that appeared on a particular topic 
in a particular year.

I have been assured by two Thomson consultants that this is true, but I 
would be very grateful if someone from this list would agree that this 
is the correct understanding of these figures.

Thank you!

Carol

-- 
Carol A. Brach
Engineering Librarian
University of Notre Dame
(574)631-5070