May 22, 2009
What is Forward Citation Searching?
What is Forward Citation Searching?
Forward Citation searching is a way users can quickly identify later works which cite a particular article. For instance, if a specific article or book were the cornerstone of a user’s research, any later work which refers to that original text would be significant to that research. These later writings could either collaborate or refute the original text, or even take the research in a whole new direction. Locating the later writings is referred to as Forward Citation Searching. The most important aspect to take from this posting is to simply be aware of this type of searching for your research. An example is outlined below. However, if you have questions with the actual procedure, please ask. Library contact information follows the example…
As an example, let’s perform a forward citation search for the 1989 book, Improving Higher Education Environments for Adults, by Nancy Schlossberg, Ann Lynch & Arthur Chickering.
We will be searching for any later works which refer to this text, i.e. articles or books written between 1989 – 2009. One way to perform Forward Citation Searching is by using the
Web of Science database.
From the Penn State Library homepage http://www.libraries.psu.edu ,
Select Databases by Title (A-Z)
Then select Web of Science.
From the ISI Web of Knowledge page, click on the Web of Science yellow tab.
Then click on Cited Reference Search.
Enter cited author’s name. For this example enter Schlossberg, N. Only enter the first author’s name. As the Web of Science page demonstrates, enter last name first, with no punctuation and only first initial.
The cited work entry is a little tricky. This database abbreviates everything, so you need to search for the work’s title (Improving Higher Education…) to see how this database has abbreviated it. To do this, click on the magnifying glass symbol at the end of this line. Enter the first three words of the title – Improving Higher Education. This search produced IMPROVING HIMPS EARL. Our example should come before this entry, so click the Previous button and then scroll to the bottom. There the user will see Improving Higher Ed click ADD and then click OK. This will bring you back to the Citing Reference Search page.
Next, for Cited Years, enter 1989-2009. (1989 was the year this book was published.)
Click Search button.
On the Search Results page click on Select box in front of Schlossberg N, then click on the Finish Search button.
This will produce seven results which refer to the Schlossberg text – six good references and one false hit or incorrect result.
That is how to perform a forward citation search.
Questions? Contact the Penn State Great Valley Library 610-648-3362.
