Psychology 201: Citation Searching in Web of Science

Citation Searching allows you to take a seminal article, and then find everyone who has cited that article after it came out.  This is a way of seeing who had continued research in the area of the original article.

1. Have the citation to the article you want to do a citation search on :

Title: Social and Behavioral-Factors Associated With High-Risk Sexual-Behavior Among Adolescents 
Author(S): Biglan A, Metzler Cw, Wirt R, Et Al.
Source: Journal Of Behavioral Medicine   Volume: 13   Issue: 3   Pages: 245-261   Published: Jun 1990

2. Go to the Web of Science - also found in Databases tab on library home page

3. Click on the Basic Search drop-down menu, and select Cited Reference Search:

4. Harvest the needed information from your citation

• Author - take the 1st author's last name and first initial.  Even if you know the whole first name or first 2 initials, you only want to start with the first inditial.  Then put an * after the initial  So for this example it would be Biglan A*
• Journal Title - Take the journal title, and then click on the "Journal Abbreviation Search" on the WOS Citation Searching screen.  Go to the letter that the journal starts with.  Then do a Ctrl F for the 1st word in the title, scroll to that hit and when you find the right journal, jot down or cut and past the abbreviation.  So for this Example it is J BEHAV MED
• Year - take the year from the citation.  So for this example it is 1990

5. Enter this information in the appropriate fields in WOS

6. Search

7. The next screen that comes up allows you to choose all the reference forms you think might correspond to your item.  Check any that look like the same thing and click finish search.

8.  The following page will list all the articles that cite your article.

Citation searching also allows you to find all the articles that cite a particular author.  This includes all that authors works, not just one specific article. 

Our example :  Tim Kasser

1.  Open Web of Science

2.  On the search screen, change the Basic Search drop-down menu to Author Search:

3. Type in the author last name and the 1st initial and then click the Select Research Domain button:

4.  Choose the subject areas the person publishes in.  Be aware that in many circles Psychology is considered a social science not a science - so always choose both. Then click Select Organization:

5.  Now find and check any places you know that author to have worked.  In our example Tim has worked both at the University of Rochester and at Knox College

6.  Now click Finish Search

7. This brings up a list of all that persons articles.  To then get to the articles that cite that person  click on the "Create Citation Report" button

8.  Then you will see to the right of the charts a link that reads Citing Articles:

9. When you click on this, you get a list of all the articles that cite that author