LINUS July 1996

CD-ROM Highlights

Guide to Citation Searching

Kan Sok Cheng, Central Library Reference & Information Services Dept

Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index & Science Citation Index not only allow you to search for materials on a particular subject but they also allow you to trace the number of articles which have cited your article for a particular year and tell you which articles have cited yours. The citation indexes can also help you to verify an article citation. The search process is easier with the indexes on CD-ROM.

Searching using Cited Article

A typical record in the citation indexes includes a list of cited articles for each article included. If you just want to locate any articles that cited a particular author, at the search menu, change the search field to the Cited author/cited reference field by using ALT-F, select Citation and hit Enter. You will see the following screen. 

                Social Science Citation Index (Jan 95 - Dec 95)

   F1-Help     F2-Databases 	  F3-Search     F4-Results	  F5-Quit

   ============================ Search Session ===========================
   Set   Records     Field
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------
   1	             Citation
	
                     Enter as PAULING-L* or PAULING-L-1949-SCIENCE-V110-P543
	             Press RETURN to execute search.

	             BUSSEY-K*



   Alt-Fields        Alt-Dictionary    Alt-Limit 	Alt-Undo Alt-CopyQuery
   Alt-ClearSession  Alt-PrintSession  Alt-SaveStrategy    Alt-RunStrategy

For example, type Bussey-K* and hit Enter. The results contains all the articles included for that year which have cited articles written by Bussey, the given author. Please note that there may be other authors with the same surname and first initial in the citation listing. By truncating the name, you could pick up these other authors and get inaccurate results.

If you are looking for who have cited a specific article by the author, establish who is the first author of the cited article (if the work is a joint effort) and the journal the cited article was published in. The more details you have, the more accurate and efficient your search will be. Let us assume that we are looking for the number of articles that have cited the following article:

Bussey, K., Bandura, A. (1992) Self regulatory mechanisms governing gender development. Child Development 63(5), 1236-1250.

We will use the Social Science Citation Index. As the above citation was published in 1992, we only have to search the index from 1993 onwards.

  1. At the search menu, change the search field to the Cited author/cited reference field.
  2. Use ALT-D to bring up a dictionary window listing all the cited references for the year, arranged in alphabetical order by the author surname. To move down the index, type the author's surname followed by a hyphen, then his initials and hit Enter. 

       ============================ Search Session ===========================
   Set   Records     Field
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------

           __________________________________________________________________
         Press space to mark/unmark terms, to transfer term to query. 
         Type letter (s) to move to another part of the dictionary. 
           __________________________________________________________________
         Records   Cited references
    
    ________________________________________________________

      |  Move to :                                               |

      |  BUSSEY-K                                                |
    ________________________________________________________
           1       A-B-GOV-1984-TECH-COOP-AGR-BETW-G
           1       A-E-1889-ANN-DIPLOMATIQUE-CON
           1       A-FOST-HIGG-CO-1990-MENT-HLTH-SUBST-AB-B
           1       A-FOST-HIGG-INC-1990-HLTH-CAR-BEN-SURV-19
           1       A-GUTT-M-I-1989-RISK-RESP-TEACH-SEX
           1       A-GUTTM-I-1976-MILL-TEEN-WHAT-CAN-B
           1       A-GUTTM-I-1981-TEEN-PREEN-PROBL-HAS

    Use the arrows keys to browse through the list until you find the item that most resembles your cited article. As shown in the diagram below there are two articles which have cited the article we are looking for. Note that journals in the cited reference list are abbreviated. 

       ============================ Search Session ===========================
   Set   Records     Field
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------

           __________________________________________________________________
         Press space to mark/unmark terms, to transfer term to query. 
         Type letter (s) to move to another part of the dictionary. 
           __________________________________________________________________
         Records   Cited references
    
            1       BUSSEY-K-1985-AGE-CRIMINAL-RESPONS-P17
            1       BUSSEY-K-1989-UNPUB-CHILDRENS-PERC
            1       BUSSEY-K-1990-MAR-BIENN-M-AM-PSYCH
            2      BUSSEY-K-1992-CHILD-DEV-V63-P1236
            3       BUSSEY-K-1992-CHILD-DEV-V63-P129
            1       BUSSEY-K-1992-CHILD-DEV-V63-P135
            2       BUSSEY-K-1992-COGNITIVE-SOCIAL-FAC-P89
            1       BUSSEY-K-1992-UNDERSTANDING-IMPROV-P147       
            2       BUSSEY-PJ-1984-PHYS-LETT-A-V106-P407
            1       BUSSHOFF-L-1980-BERUFSBERATER-V2-P13

    Explanation of a cited reference: 

              Publication year              Volume number

                            \                    /

              BUSSEY-K -1992- CHILD-DEV - V63 - P1236

                  /                   /                   \

         Author name      Abbreviated journal title    Page number

  3. If you want to find out what are the articles that have made references to the cited article, highlight the cited reference and hit Enter. This transfers the cited reference statement to the search screen. Hit Enter again to execute the search. Use F4 and Enter to view the citation of those articles.

Citation Verification

Let us assume that we are looking for an article by Helen Hughes, which was published in the journal World Development in 1975 and we have no other information. You may use the cited reference search described above to verify the citation. Go to the dictionary window for Cited authors/cited references, type Hughes-H, to move to the entries begining with Hughes-H, browse the list to identify citations published in 1975. You will find the cited reference entry only if the articles included in the citation indexes have cited her article.

| Next : Journal Citation Reports | Contents |
LINUS July 1996, The National University of Singapore Library