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Web of Science Database

Using Cited Reference Search (Moving Forward in Time)

OpenClick on the CITED REFERENCES tab on the Web of Science homepage:

  1. Enter a name in the Cited Author field and then type a journal title or book title in the Cited Work field.
    • You may also search on Cited Year, Cited Volume, Cited Issue, Cited Pages, Cited Title, or Cited DOI but keeping it broad initially will yield the most results and you can narrow at a later point.
  2. Click SearchResults from the cited reference index that include the work you’re searching appears on a table. Every reference on the cited reference index has been cited by at least one article indexed in the Web of Science. The first author of a cited work always displays in the Cited Author column.
    • If the cited author you specified in step 1 is not the primary author, then the name of author you specified follows the name of the first author (click Show all authors). If you retrieve too many hits, return to the cited reference search page and add criteria for Cited Year, Cited Volume, Cited Issue, or Cited Page.
  3. Select references and cited reference variants from the index table.
    • If a cited work listed in the title field is hyperlinked, you can open that record. If it’s not, the following may be true:
      1. cited reference is not a source article in the Web of Science
      2. reference may contain incomplete or inaccurate information, and can’t be linked to a source article
      3. reference may refer to a document from a publication outside the timespan of your subscription; for example, if the article was published in 1992, but your subscription only gives you access to 20 years of data
      4. cited item may refer to a document from a publication not covered by a database in your subscription
  4. Click Finish Search to go to the Results page. The system retrieves all records of publications that cite the references you selected from the Cited Reference Index.

  5. Cited References Search Results  View records of items that cite the work(s) you selected from the Cited Reference Search page. Be aware that the number of citing works you retrieve may be smaller than the number listed in the Citing Articles column on the Cited Reference Search page. Access to records is limited to your institution's subscription.

  6. Important to remember: In addition to the correct cited references, Web of Science includes any variants or "errors" that likely refer to the same article and you may want to include those "misses" in any overall citation count.

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Mary Foppiani
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Science & Engineering Library
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617-353-9475