Diagnostic testing of Web of Science Smart Search against deterministic Advanced Search identified four wildcard failures: omission, undocumented expansion, syntactic restructuring, and compounding across multiple wildcards. The pattern suggests a dual-parser architecture in which simple keyword queries invoke a flawed parser, while Boolean operators trigger a more reliable one.
Key findings
- Basic wildcard searches may omit records or expand terms without disclosure. • Errors can compound when several wildcards appear in one query. • The SIFT-S framework turns technical failures into teachable information-literacy checks.
Why this matters globally
The findings matter for systematic reviews and reproducible searching because opaque smart-interface failures can silently omit evidence. Researchers and librarians should document search modes and benchmark critical queries against deterministic interfaces.
Thai researcher contribution
WeiZhi Yang and Monamorn Precharattana are affiliated with Mahidol University in the source metadata, linking Thai institutional expertise to global concerns about scholarly-search transparency.
Limitations to consider
Results are version- and platform-dependent; the vendor may change parsing without notice. A diagnostic suite centred on sport and exercise terminology cannot cover every discipline or query structure.