Cited Reference Searching

Cited reference searching is different than subject searching in that this technique allows you follow the evolution of a topic forward and backward in time. Here's how it works...

You've started your search for information and have located an article written in 1995 that seems to be almost perfect but it's a tad old. Wouldn't it be helpful if you could identify articles that have cited this wonderful article since it was written in 1995? Using the technique 0f cited reference searching, you can accomplish this fairly simply.

The logic behind cited reference searching is that an author cites articles that are related to his.

Some of the reasons why an author might cite another article are that it might:

• provide part of the context in which the current paper is being written or is another aspect of the same topic
• represent an earlier stage in research or thinking which is explored further in the current paper
• provide a technique or procedure used in the current study
• state something that the author of the current paper would like to refute

In other words, you can watch a topic evolve...not to mention that you can check out how many times your own articles have been cited.

There are many resources that provide cited reference searching but the gold standards are Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index from the Web of Science.

CINAHL and PsycINFO are two other databases that have been adding cited references to each article record for several years (more about that in future posts!). SCOPUS, a new product for our library, offers cited reference analysis and Google Scholar allows a form of cited reference searching.

Watch for some comparisons in upcoming posts!