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SURP 812 Qualitative Methods in Planning

Further Information

The importance and "impact" of scholarly research articles are often measured by

  • the number of times a published paper has been cited
  • the ranking of the journal in which a paper is published
  • the acceptance rate of submitted articles to a journal

For further information, see Citation Searching and Bibliometric Measures from C&RL News (pdf)

Databases that Allow Citation Searching

The library has access to several citation databases that have the capability of searching by cited references. 

When conducting a cited reference search, be aware that:

  • search results depend on the content of the database and what is indexed
  • entries in citation databases are not usually edited but reflect the form of the author's name and cited works as appeared in print
  • for some articles, only the first author may be indexed
  • citation reference searching works best for tracking citations in periodical articles and not as well for books, book chapters and other published works

Web of Science

Web of Science is the most well-known database for citation searching. it includes Social Science Citation Index, Science Citation Index, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index and therefore covers all subjects. To select a certain collection, click Editions. Date Coverage varies by collection.

To Search, click on the tab, Cited References and enter information. 

For help, go to the Cited Reference Search page.

Scopus

Scopus is a multi-disciplinary abstract and citation database. Date Coverage: 1970-present; selected access back to 1823

Help in doing a cited reference search.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar allows you to freely search for scholarly information on the web.

To find cited references, search your original title then follow the Cited By links.  Cited By identifies all articles, books and other sources that cite your original article within Google Scholar. Clicking on the Related Articles link will bring up a list of references to other documents that are similar to the cited article.

EBSCOHost Databases

Databases with citation searching include Academic Search Complete, America History and Life, Business Source Premier, Historical Abstracts among others.

If you are searching a single database that supports “cited reference” searching, a Cited References link will display at the top of the EBSCOhost screen.

Click here for a guide on cited reference searching in EBSCO databases.

JSTOR

does not actually have a cited reference search but it does have a “Track Citation” feature.  To use this first create a JSTOR account including your email address. Perform your search and from the results, check the box next to the citation your want to track. Click Track Citation link. If that item is cited in JSTOR you will be notified.

Open Citations

is a free resource that uses DOIs to link one item to citing/cited by items (mostly articles). You must have a DOI to use the search, and then you choose whether you want to retrieve the DOIs/clickable links to the references in that article (described as "Retrieve the citation data for all the references to other works appearing in the bibliographic entity"), or to articles that reference it (described as "Retrieve the citation data for all the references appearing in other works to the bibliographic entity")

Proquest

Do a search in a Proquest database, d.g. MLA,  When viewing the search results in Proquest, if that article has been cited, you can click on 'Cited by' to view where the citation has been cited.