This guide provides tutorials on how to conduct a citation search in the four key citation databases:
We recommend you review Part 5 of our 'Constructing a Search' guide here to explain what we mean by citation searching, and why it may be of use to you.
Few research publications exist in isolation: they have built upon the prior research of others, and in turn will be read, criticised, applied, adapted and built upon by others. A Cited reference search is the process of taking a 'known article' you have already found, and exploring the scholarly network it belongs to: what did the author cite and reference in this work (backwards in time), and who has since cited and referenced this work since it was published (going forwards in times)?
A cited reference search can help you better understand where the article sits within the wider scholarly conversation.
You should always consider how and why others may cite a work.
Once you have found a key publication (or author), this will form the start or target of your search. You can then use source which is sufficiently broad in scope and coverage to try to identify as many citing publications as it can. The following tabs show how you can do this in several sources, including Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar.
There are two approaches you can take within Web of Science to identify articles which cite an article you have already found (your 'known article').
Option 1: Document Search for the 'Known Article'
Once you have found a paper within Web of Science, viewing the abstract page will show the Citation Network to which the paper belongs (within the dataset of all outputs indexed within Web of Science).
You can create a (free) personal account within Web of Science, and then (1) set up a Citation Alert so that you will be notified of any future publications which cite this work.
Alternatively, you can (2) browse existing citations to the 'known article' (those publications which have subsequently been published and have cited the 'known article') within the Web of Science Core Collection, or (3) see other citations that might be found in some of the specialist databases available on the Web of Science platform (e.g. Dissertations & Theses).
You can also look backwards in time, viewing the cited references (those publications to which the author made reference to in their bibliography and which are indexed within Web of Science).
Finally, you can also (5) view other related records within Web of Science content (other papers which share similar references to this known article).
Option 2: Cited Reference Search
Alternatively, you can conduct a more comprehensive cited reference search. This can be useful to identify additional citing articles which might have cited a particular passage or page in the work, or another factor which might mean they have not been picked up in the citations alongside the article abstract within Web of Science.
To perform a search (in this example, for the 'known article' Hayden, RM (2002) 'Antagonistic Tolerance - Competitive sharing of religious sites in South Asia and the Balkans' Current Anthropology 43 (2) p205-231:
(1) From the Web of Science landing page, select to conduct a Cited Reference Search (as opposed to the default Document Search).
(2) From the options presented, enter sufficient details to correctly identify the 'known article':
CITED AUTHOR: Hayden
CITED WORK: Current Anthropology
CITED YEAR(S): 2002
(3) From the results presented, select all those which represent the 'known article'.
An example can be seen below.
In this example, in addition to the 155 citing articles identified, it also identified several other examples including:
You can see how to conduct a Cited Reference Search in the video provided by Clarivate Analytics (who produce Web of Science) below.
(4) After clicking on Select results, you will the list of all citing articles to the identified 'known article' (160, compared to the 155 otherwise identified from the articles abstract page). From here you can review these further, or select to create a Citation Alert to be alerted of additional results which cite this 'known article'.
NOTE: A video tutorial of how to conduct a Cited Reference Search, provided by Clarivate Analytics (who produce Web of Science) can be seen opposite (or below) this box.
Once you have found a paper within Scopus, viewing the abstract page will show the Citing documents for the known article (within the dataset of all outputs indexed within Scopus).
(1) Selecting View all ## citing documents will allow you to see all current citing papers, and analyse that set of results further if desired (e.g. who are the authors, where are the citing documents published).
(2) Selecting the option to Set Citation Alert will (once you have created a free Scopus account) allow you to set up an alert to notify you of any subsequently published works citing this 'known article'.
We do not currently hold a subscription to the full Dimensions service.
Academics (including students) can however register for access to the free version, which allows you to search the database and will provide some free limited access to information, including citing articles, for personal and non-commercial use.
See Dimensions for further information (and the video tutorial opposite).
Whilst Google Scholar is a search engine, rather than a quality controlled database, it does index a broad range of scholarly (and scholarly adjacent) material. You can therefore often find Google Scholar will highlight citations in works not found in services such as Scopus and Web of Science, such as citations in theses, books, preprints and working papers.
For further information on why you will find different results in Google Scholar, see our blog post.
If Google Scholar identifies any works which cite a 'known article', it will present a link to see these below the result in the results list page:
If you click to see these citing articles, you will then also be presented with the opportunity to sign up for an alert to be notified of any new articles found which cite the original 'known article'.
Scopus, Web of Science etc. will be able to alert you to where the work you have found has been cited in other scholarly publications. Google Scholar might expand this to non peer-reviewed working papers, as well as doctoral theses and some limited blog posts.
Services such as Altemtric.com can allow you to identify where a paper you have identified has also been mentioned in news articles, blog posts, patent applications, policy documents, reports and on social media.
