Cited Reference Searching: Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences

Web of Science Core Collection

— is the current incarnation of the venerable Citation Indexes  which invented this approach.  Among other segments, it includes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) –1900-present and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) –1975-present

Here’s how to use it for cited reference searching:

1. If a cited article is itself indexed in the Web of Science, simply look it up in the default “Documents” search and “Times Cited” with a link will be on the right side of the record.
2. If the cited item was not indexed by Web of Science, select “Cited References” instead of “Documents”.
   • •   Enter the author’s name (last name [space, no comma] first initial *) in the “Cited Author” field and the year the item you are interested in was published in the”Cited Year(s)” field.
     • The way that a work is cited can be inconsistent, so I recommend trying the search with just these two fields initially.
     • If you need to narrow the search further, try the “cited work” (usually an abbreviated title of journal or book) and other search fields.
   • Then click search. You then see a list titled “Cited Reference Index.” Each line refers to a work that matches your search criteria. The same work may be referenced in several lines because of slight differences in the data (different cited pages for example.) The number at the start of each line is the number of times that reference has been cited in other works.
   • Check the boxes in front of all relevant lines and click “See Results”. This generates a list of articles and books that cite one or more of the items you selected.

Scopus

1.If a cited article is itself indexed in Scopus, simply look it up in the Basic Search and cited by” with a number and a link will be on the right side of the record.

2. If the cited item is not indexed in Scopus, or if you are searching for citations of an author, not an item:

• Change the search option from Article Title, Abstract Keywords to References.
• Enter all the information you have about the item in the single search box.

These subject-based indices support limited cited reference searching.

America: History and Life [via EBSCO]  
“Searchable cited references are provided for more than 450 key titles”
The “Cited References” Search option is located in blue bar at top of screen.

Art  & Architecture Source [via EBSCO]  
Extent of cited reference indexing is unknown.
The “Cited References” Search option is located in blue bar at top of screen.

Business Source Complete [via Ebsco]  
extent of cited reference searching unknown.
The “Cited References” Search option is located in blue bar at top of screen.

Communication Abstracts [via EBSCO]  
“Searchable references for hundreds of titles”
The “Cited References” Search option is located in blue bar at top of screen.

Education Source [via EBSCO]  
extent of cited reference indexing is unknown..
The “Cited References” Search option is located in blue bar at top of screen.

Historical Abstracts [via EBSCO]  
“Searchable cited references for nearly 520 titles.”
The “Cited References” Search option is located in blue bar at top of screen.

LGBT Life [via Ebsco]  
Extent of cited reference indexing is unknown.
The “Cited References” Search option is located in blue bar at top of screen.

Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) [via EBSCO]  
Extent of cited reference indexing is unknown.
The “Cited References” Search option is located in blue bar at top of screen.

PsycINFO [via Proquest]    
“there are more than 8 million cited references in 185,000 journal articles, books, and book chapters.” In advanced search select “Reference–REF”  from the dropdown menu. Some articles published as far back as 1910 have cited references listed.

Sociological Abstracts [via Proquest]  
“Since 2002, most records from scholarly journals also include the references cited in the bibliography of the source article.”
Use Command Line Searching  and set the Search Field to “Reference-REF”. Click “add to form” and then put search terms inside the parentheses.

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts [via Proquest]    
” references cited in the bibliography of the source article have been included for citations to core journals in political science, added to the database since 2001, and for all journals added since 2004.”
Use Command Line Searching  and set the Search Field to “Reference-REF”. Click “add to form” and then put search terms inside the parentheses.

Searchable Full-Text Databases offer the opportunity to identify cited references whether they index specifically for that purpose or not.  Here is a selection of this type of resource.  See also, Subject Guides for discipline-specific full text resources.