For any given entry in a citation index, there are two types of references for a given article:
- CITED references are those references used by the author of a given article. These are the references that comprise an article's bibliography found usually at the end of a scholarly paper.
- CITING references are those references that cite the original article.
Note that more recent articles are unlikely to have been cited yet since it takes a while to come to the attention of researchers. As well, it may be that an article has answered "The Question" and has closed down research and discourse of around a given research question. Finally, it might well be that a given piece of research just is not useful to the research community, hence is not used. (Of course, that doesn't mean it won't be at some point in time but just not right now.)
Alternatively, a high number of citing references may mean the work is key to the topic being researched OR it might mean that the research represented by the article is being used as an example of bad research.
As always, it is up to you to evaluate the article for its merit and usefulness to your own purpose.
Conducting a Cited Reference Search
The Cited Reference Search works the same way for all citation indexes.
To begin, choose the citation index that you wish to search (e.g., Web of Science Core Collection, Biosis Citation Index, Data Citation Index, etc.). Drop down the search options (see the downward arrow next to BASIC SEARCH) and choose CITED REFERENCE SEARCH.
A template will open that prompts you for the various bits of a citation: author name, title of the "work" (meaning Journal Title), the year of publication, etc. etc. Fill in as much information as you have, noting you can add more fields to the search. The more information you provide, the less work you will have to do to find the correct article.
After entering the details of your reference in the template, the citation index will then return a list of matches. In some cases, there may be variant citations resulting from the article being mis-cited along the way. That said, Thomson Reuters works to "unify" the variants. The following example is a cited reference search for an article published in 1983 by Daryl Bem in the journal, Psychological Review.
Note that you have the option to SHOW EXPANDED TITLES. Clicking this option will display the title of the article, useful if there were more than one entry and there was some confusion about which was the article of interest.
When you have found the correct article, check off the box next to that entry and then click FINISH SEARCH. At this point, the citing references for your article will be displayed.
In this example, there are 14 CITING references or articles that have used Bem's work to inform their own. In turn, you can see the times that each of these articles were then cited by others. You can then click through on one of these citing articles to see the works that cited that reference. And, so it is that you move from a reference you have in hand (a cited reference) foward to see how that research informed other research going forward.
By default, these citing references are sorted by publication date, newest to oldest. In order to see the citing reference which, in turn, the most cited by others, you will need to re-sort by TIMES CITED--highest to lowest (as illustrated to the right).
For more information, Thomson Reuters provides a video tutorial on Cited Reference Searching.
Citation Maps
A one or two generation citation map, backwards and/or forwards, can be displayed for any article which graphically illustrates the position of a given article in the spectrum of research about a topic. An example appears in the section above.
Citation Report
Citation reports give you a sense of an author's work over time, both in terms of publications and in the impact that that work has had in the research.
