Document Types

Reports of research on new and original works that are considered citable. Includes research papers, brief communications, technical notes, chronologies, full papers, and case reports (presented like full papers) that were published in a journal and/or presented at a symposium or conference.

Articles usually include author abstract, graphs, tables, and lists of cited references.

Reviews of gallery or museum showings of artworks, crafts, manuscripts, memorabilia, artifacts, or collections of sorts.

A list, often with descriptive or critical notes, of writings relating to a particular subject.

Obituaries or articles focusing on the life of an individual, and articles that are tributes to or commemorations of an individual.

A monograph or publication written on a specific topic.

A monograph or publication written on a specific topic within a main division in a book.

A critical appraisal of a book (often reflecting a reviewer's personal opinion or recommendation) that evaluates such aspects as organization and writing style, possible market appeal, and cultural, political, or literary significance. The book being reviewed is processed as the source title. The reviewer is processed as the author.

Correction of errors found in articles that were previously published and which have been made known after that article was published. Includes additions and errata. Retraction Items were processed as corrections prior to 2016. A correction title will include the citation to the article being corrected.

Reviews of solo dance recitals, complete dance productions, dance programs consisting of several works, and other types of performed dances.

A scholarly publication describing s particular dataset or collection of datasets and usually published in the form of a peer-reviewed article in a scholarly journal. The main purpose of a data paper is to provide facts about the data (metadata, such as data collection, access, features etc.) rather than analysis and research in support of the data, as found in a conventional research article. A Data Paper will have a dual document type: Article; Data Paper.

Prior to 2016, a Data Paper was processed as an Article only.

A critical appraisal of a database, often reflecting a reviewer's personal opinion or recommendation. Refers to a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system.

An article that has been electronically published by a journal before it has been assigned to a specific volume and issue. An Early Access article will have a dual document type that will include the document type assigned and Early Access: Article; Early Access. When the article is later indexed from the issue, it is updated with the volume, issue, date, page information and the Early Access document type is removed. The processing of Early Access articles began in December 2017. Only journals that have been onboarded for early access contain Early Access articles.

To qualify as Early Access, content must:

• be the version of record that will not change, aside from the final assignment in a volume/issue

• include a DOI that will not change

• include an Early Access publication date

• include the cited references if present in the version of record

• not include volume, issue, page range, final publication date

• be published in a journal with a volume/issue model

Because the content is not expected to change between the Early Access version and the version assigned to a specific volume and issue, the Early Access year is considered fully published as they can begin to accrue citations in this early access state.

If the amount of time between the Early Access publication and publication in a specific volume and issue spans multiple years, then the Early Access date and the Publication Date may differ. Both dates are provided to facilitate easy discovery. If desired for analytics purposes, you may refine by a single year to eliminate double counting.

An article that gives the opinions of a person, group, or organization. Includes commentaries (depending on the content), editorials, interviews, discussions between individuals, post-paper discussions, round table symposia, conference summary, research highlights, introduction, preface and conclusion.

A selection from or a fragment of a literary or musical work, which cannot stand as a separate work in its own right (that is not a short story from a collection of stories or a poem from a book of poems).

Includes short stories and other works (non-poetry) classified as creative writing rather than objective reporting of events or a scholarly presentation of facts.

A review of a motion picture.

A critical appraisal of computer hardware, often reflecting a reviewer's personal opinion or recommendation. Refers to objects that you can actually touch, like disk drives, keyboards, printers.

Brief Contributions or correspondence from the readers to the journal editor concerning previously published material. Includes “Readers Write”, “Questions and Answers”, “Letters to the Editor” and “Comments”.

A paper that covers meeting abstracts sections published in a journal. The article title will include the meeting title (if provided) followed by the word abstracts. If meeting abstracts are processed individually the page span will be a singular page. If the journal does not meet the criteria for processing the individual meeting abstracts the page span will include the entire set of meeting abstracts.

NOTE: The “Meeting” document type created in 2023, will be applied retrospectively from 2019. The document type “Article” was assigned prior to 2019.

An abstract or extended abstract of completed papers that were or will be presented at a symposium or conference.

NOTE: We process meeting abstracts from journals only in certain circumstances. If the journal falls into any of these three conditions, individual meeting abstracts are processed.

The journal is covered in the Web of Science Social Science Citation Index®

The journal is also covered in BIOSIS and meets the BIOSIS meeting abstracts processing policy, or is also covered in Derwent Drug File

The journal is on a pre-approved Web of Science exception list

If the journal does not fall into any of the above conditions, the meeting abstract section is processed as a single “article” record with “Abstract” added to the title.

NOTE: DOI handling for meeting abstracts

If a single DOI is provided for either a meeting abstract section or the individual meeting abstracts, it is included. However, if a single DOI is provided for a meeting abstract section and the meeting abstracts are indexed individually, it will be included with the Current Contents Meeting record and not the individual meeting abstracts since the DOIs should be unique.

A paper that covers multiple meeting abstracts in a variety of subjects.

Review of a live musical performance (recital, concert, and opera).

Transcript of the original and entire draft of a musical composition or an arrangement with the parts for the different instruments or voices written on staffs one above another.

Review of a bound musical composition or bound collection of musical compositions.

News, current events, and recent developments usually unauthored and less than a page long.

Compositions in verse; metrical writing.

Full papers in a wide range of disciplines that were or will be presented at a symposium or meeting. The papers to be included must have been presented in full at a conference, meeting, symposium or similar gathering. Generally published in a book of conference proceedings.

Records covered in the two Conference Proceedings indexes (CPCI-S and CPCI-SSH) are identified as Proceedings Paper. However, the same records covered in the three indexes (SCI-E, SSCI, and A&HCI) are identified as Article when published in a journal. Proceedings papers will have a dual document type: Article; Proceedings paper.

Reviews of recorded music or speech.

An article that was previously published. Reprinted information is included in the source title and the original article is cited.

An article that has been retracted by an author, institution, editor, or a publisher. A Retracted Article will have a dual document type:

EXAMPLE Article; Retracted Publication. A Retracted Publication dual document type was created in 2016 and will only be assigned if a retraction notice is published.

A published statement from the editor or author announcing the retraction of a manuscript and the reason for the retraction. The retraction notice must state that the item is being retracted. The original article information is included in the title of the retraction and the original article is cited. Prior to 2016 retractions were processed as corrections. The original article information is included in the title of the retraction and the original article is cited.

Detailed, critical surveys of published research.  A review article may summarize previously published studies and draw some  conclusions but will not present new information on the subject. Includes Reviews, Review of Literature, Mini-reviews, and Systematic reviews. If an article is listed under the review section in a journal and/or Review of Literature appears in the title it will be assigned a review.

If an article is not assigned a review by the journal but Review, Systematic Review or Mini-review appears in the title, it must also appear someplace else in the article (abstract/summary or introduction) in order to be assigned the document type review.

NOTE: If the article(s) meet the above criteria - they must have References in order to be tagged as a Review item.

Review articles that were presented at a Symposium or Conference will be processed as Proceedings Papers.

Includes film scripts, plays, TV, and radio scripts.