If you already have a particular citation you would like to look up (i.e. a 'known item') use the 'Cited Reference Search' feature in Social Sciences Citation Index. To do so, open the database then click on the arrow next to 'basic search' at the top of the screen. This will bring up a menu where you can select 'cited reference search'. We will walk through an example in the box below.
If you don't have a particular article in mind, but would rather look up citations based on a topic of interest, simply leave Social Sciences Citation Index on the basic search screen to proceed. We will walk through an example below.
In this example, let's assume we want to do a cited reference search using this article found in FASTsearch:
Once we select the 'Cited Reference Search' option described above, it will ask us to input 3 pieces of information: author, year, and work. Use the 'view abbreviation list' to find the abbreviation for this journal title. The completed search form will look like this:
Once you press 'search', the next page will show a list of results which are possible matches. If you see a list, simply choose the item that best matches your citation. If there is only one match, it will be displayed like so:
Check the box to the left of the work and press 'Finish Search' to complete the cited reference search. The next page will list all of the indexed articles which cite the article you looked up. We will look at the results page in more depth in the next section of the guide.
If you are not using a particular citation, search Social Sciences Citation Index as you would any other database. To begin, enter in a keyword or two related to your topic in the search box:
When you press search, the next screen will display all matching results. You can either scroll through these results to find an item of interest, or use the 'Sort By' feature at the top of the screen to sort the results in a number of way:
Next, scroll through the results to select an item with citations you would like to follow. Once you find an item of interest, click on the title. On the right side of the new screen you will see a link which says "# times cited". Click on this link to bring up a list of all the articles which cite the original work:
We will discuss interpreting the results in the next section of the guide.
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