Cited-Citing Searching
Whenever you are in a bibliographic database such as the ones in the "finding articles" tab of this guide, always look for the ability to search for articles or other items, published later in time, that cite the journal article (or other item) that you find of interest.
This is a powerful way to build up your citation list, since the items in citing-cited relationships will in one way or another be addressing the same topic.
Below is information about some databases that enable this type of searching, but (again) look for this capability in any bibliographic database, including the ones in the tab "finding articles".
Social Sciences Citation Index
- Social Sciences Citation Index This link opens in a new windowPart of Web of Science. Provides powerful access to authoritative content from the highest impact journals worldwide, including Open Access journals. Covers 1982 to present.
Web of Science includes the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. The databases search "current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from approximately 8,500 of the most prestigious, high impact research journals in the world."
Cited reference searching allows users to "navigate forward, backward, and through the literature, searching all disciplines and time spans to uncover all the information relevant to their research." Citation indexes allow the user to track a particular article to see if it has been cited by other authors and discover more recent articles that may be crucial to your research.
For another explanation of this research skill, check out this brief video.
Google Scholar
To trace citations using Google Scholar, click on the "cited by" link. This is a good supplemenent to the Social Sciences Citation index.
Cited Reference Searching in Social Sciences Citation Index
This brief video tutorial explains how to conduct a cited reference search in the Social Sciences Citation Index (part of Web of Science).
See also: