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Searching the Scientific Literature

Citation Searching

Introduction to Citation Searching

As part of the research process citation is made within current publications to earlier research. Citations may serve the following purposes:

  • Acknowledge related work of other scientists.
  • Identify additional sources of information.
  • Reference methods used in the research.
  • Acknowledge conflicts with other research results.
  • Provide support for views expressed in a paper.

Citations are commonly included within the text of the paper and listed in a concluding "Bibliography" or "Literature Cited" section. 

References Cited section of a scholarly article
 

Starting with at least one initial research paper, a bibliography of both older and newer research related to your topic can be created. The initial research paper(s) may come from several possible sources:

  • Subject searching of A-Z Databases and library catalog.
  • Your personal knowledge of the literature on a specific topic.
  • Reference books such as subject encyclopedias, treatises, and reviews.
  • Another person who has specific knowledge on the topic.

Finding Older References

To work BACKWARD in time use the "Bibliography" or "Literature Cited" section of publications relevant to your research. Look for works cited in these publications that may be pertinent, and search for that title. Continue to follow up additional references that you find in older papers. Depending upon the extent of your information needs, this process can be repeated until the point is reached when you continue finding the same older references.

Web of literature by year and how they relate to one another

Finding Newer References

You can also work FORWARD in time from an older reference. The results of your search in these databases will be a bibliography of more recent papers that have cited your original, older research paper. See this short video introduction for more information: Advanced Research Skills: Citation Searching.

You can 

Google Scholar is the most comprehensive citation database to which the CPH Library has access.

Other scientific literature databases available at CPH also provide citations to more recent articles. You may also be able to set up a "search alert" for new articles that have cited an article found in a database. (Note: Two comprehensive citation databases--Web of Science and Scopus--are not available at CPH.)

Some Science Databases Available at CPH