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DCCL Orientation & Dissertation Workshop

Guide to FLITE's resources for DCCL students, especially those working on their dissertation.

Web of Science

What is Web of Science?

Web of Science is (despite its name) a multi-disciplinary article database; one of its greatest strengths is that it allows for cited reference searching. 

Can I still do cited reference searching without Web of Science?

Yes! See the Cited Reference Page under the Maintaining Currency tab.

If you would like to use Web of Science, many large, major research libraries provide access to it. You would need to check with the individual libraries for guest use of databases.

Dissertation Abstracts

What is Dissertation Abstracts?

Dissertation Abstracts provides "indexing & authors' abstracts for most doctoral dissertations and some masters theses accepted each year in the United States and Canada (since 1861), plus thousands more from Great Britain and Ireland (since 1716), and selected other universities around the world (as far back as 1637)." https://search.lib.umich.edu/databases/record/9069

However, "Increasingly, universities are requiring that doctoral degree candidates deposit their dissertations into the university's online repository, and are changing submission to ProQuest from a requirement to an option.  For example, as of 2012, University of Michigan requires deposit of dissertations into its Deep Blue online repository, and no longer requires submission to ProQuest.  To the extent that authors elect not to submit their dissertations to ProQuest, its listings for dissertations are becoming gradually less complete over time.  (Its listings for dissertations filed at U-M have declined from being about 80% complete for 2012 to only about 25% to 20% complete for 2013 and 2014, respectively.)"

Can I still look for dissertations without Dissertation Abstracts?

Yes! The Theses and Dissertations guide I created provides many options to using the Dissertation Abstract database.

If you would still like to use Dissertation Abstracts, many large, major research libraries provide access to it. You would need to check with the individual libraries for guest use of databases.