Psychology 201: Citation Searching in PsycInfo

This guide is designed to provide useful content for Psychology 201.
  • Last Updated: Nov 29, 2023 1:26 PM
  • URL: https://library.knox.edu/Psyc201
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Citation Searching Steps

Your Starting Article ~ You always start a citation search with a key article you've already found on your topic.  To be a good candidate for Citation Searching, your article should be:

  • A primary source ~ This means it is a original research written by those who did the study
  • A key article on your topic ~It should be of significant interest to you
  • Published at least a year previously ~ New articles will not have any citations yet

Gathering info from your starting article ~ In order to do the citation search, you will need some information from your starting article :

  • Authors 
  • Article Title 
  • Year

Open PsycInfo ~ Have your starting article info ready. 

Enter the info on your starting article ~ Authors, Title, Publication year.  Note: you don't absolutely need to use the article title, but it is more efficient. 

Check the citation status of your Starting Article ~ The entry should have a "Times Cited in this Database (XXX) indication at the end of the entry.  See this example:

Cited In

If it does not list this, then your article has not been cited by other psychology articles, and can't be used for a citation search.  If your assignment requires a citation search, you will have to pick a different Starting Article. 

Click on the Times Cited in this Database heading ~ This will bring up all the articles that cite your starting article in their bibliography. 

Check how many their are : 

  • If there are under 75 ~ look through and choose the one or ones that look most interesting to you for your research
  • If there are over 75 ~ You may want to either :
    • Try your Starting Article in Web of Science ~ See the WOS tab on the main part of the Guide - this allows you to refine the list. 
    • Export the Citations to Excel ~ See the next tab in this box

Step One ~ Add citing articles to your Folder in PsycInfo

  • Change the Page Options to show 50 Articles at a time
    • Click Page Options in the upper right corner
    • Scroll to Results per Page and choose 50 & Apply

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Click the Add (1-50) button that is to the right of the Page Options 

  • Go to the next page and repeat until you have added all the citing articles to your PsycInfo Folder

Step Two ~ Export the citing articles in your Folder to Excel

  • Once you have all the citing articles in your folder (Add for each page), Click on the Folder Icon on the right side of the blue menu bar.

Folder

 

  • In your folder, click the Select All box

  • Click the Export Icon on the far right

  • Click the Download CSV Option

  • Click the Save button that is to the left of the export type list

  • A Save window will pop up, name your file and save it to the folder you want it in 

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Step Three ~ Use Data Sort and Find options in Excel to narrow down your list.

  • Open the file in Excel 
  • Use the Excel functions
    • Data - Sort to sort by year or journal 
    • Find (Ctrl F) ~ To look for other key terms