InfoGuides: Cited Reference Searching: Overview

What is Cited Reference Searching?

Cited references searching tracks article citations that authors put in the bibliographies of published papers, books, and other documents. It is most commonly used by authors to see who is citing their research. Citation metrics are also used to determine the importance of a journal in a discipline (Impact factor, Eigenfactor). Many researchers include citation metrics (H-index) in professional review for tenure or promotion.

Reasons to use Cited Reference Searching:

To find how many times, by whom and where a publication is being cited
To find current, earlier or related research
To perform a comprehensive literature search
To determine impact of a journal on a discipline
To determine influence of a researcher’s work

Cautions...Warnings

Unfortunately, there is not one unique database that shows all cited references for all articles. Each database is limited by 1) which journals it indexes and 2) date limits of journals indexed. So, searching for the number of citations to a particular article will yield different results in different databases.

Deng MC, Effect of receiving a heart transplant: analysis of a national cohort entered on to a waiting list, stratified by heart failure severity. BMJ. 2000 Sep 2;321(7260):540-5.

Science Citation Index:

Google Scholar:

In addition, indexing practices differ between databases so variants in author names and journal titles become a problem: