Reference Identification Tools:
A Skill Guide

Introduction

Among Cornell University Library's hundreds of databases, a number of them also allow you to track the flow of research by including ways to identify references that cite or are cited by other scholarly sources.

This guide introduces databases that have this tool to assist you in your research.

For further information or to locate other sources not listed here, please consult a reference librarian.

EBSCO databases

Within this large umbrella of databases, the following specific databases included a cited reference feature:

Academic Search Premier provides citations and abstracts for articles from over 4,140 journals, and includes full text from over 3,170 journals.

Business Source Premier is a comprehensive, business periodical database which includes scholarly journals and business periodicals covering topics such as management, economics, finance, accounting and international business. It provides a cumulative indexing and abstracting for 4,132 business journals (1661 peer-reviewed) and cumulative full text for 3.298 journals (1,032 peer-reviewed).

Communication and Mass Media Complete offers full-text coverage for more than 280 titles plus citation coverage for many more. Many major journals have indexing, abstracts, PDF's, and searchable citations from their first issues to the present (dating as far back as the early 1900s). CMMC uses a controlled vocabulary and includes linked references for all "core" peer-reviewed journals. Search limits include the ability to restrict search results to full-text, scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals, or articles that include references.

Hospitality and Tourism Complete covers scholarly research and industry news relating to all areas of hospitality and tourism. This collection contains more than 500,000 records, with coverage dating as far back as 1965. There is full text for more than 200 publications. Sources are both domestic and international in range and scope, with material collected from countries and regions such as Canada , Australia , Europe and Asia . Subject areas covered include the culinary arts, demographics & statistics, development & investment, food & beverage management, hospitality law, hotel management & administrative practices, leisure & business travel, market trends, technology and more.

Humanities International Index is a comprehensive database of humanities content, providing full text of hundreds of journals, books and other published sources from around the world. This database provides cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 1,700 journals and contains more than 1.5 million records. Major subject areas include literature, philosophy, the arts, history, culture and multi-disciplinary humanities titles, with a special emphasis on literature and the literary arts. Title coverage goes back as far as 1929. Humanities International Complete includes deep backfiles for some of the most important journals in the area of the humanities.

These databases offer a "cited references" link at the top tab of the database search page.

By selecting this link, you can choose to search in this database by cited author, cited title, cited source, cited year, and all citation fields. You can also select cited references, related records, and times cited in this database.

For more assistance, go directly to the Ebsco Help Page. Under Browsing on the left, select Cited References.

Web of Science

Web of Science provides seamless access to current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from approximately 8,700 of the most prestigious, high impact research journals in the world. Web of Science also provides a unique search method, cited reference searching. With it, users can navigate forward, backward, and through the literature, searching all disciplines and time spans to uncover all the information relevant to their research. Users can also navigate to electronic full-text journal articles.

ISI citation databases are multidisciplinary databases of bibliographic information indexed to be searched by subject, author, journal, and/or author address. They can also be searched for articles that cite a known author or work. Cited reference searching allows use of a given work as if it were a subject term, to identify more recent articles on the same topic.

Within this, Web of Science offers three citation databases:

Science Citation Index Expanded ~ Social Sciences Citation Index ~ Arts & Humanities Citation Index

These citation databases contain information gathered from thousands of scholarly journals and include references cited by the authors of the articles.

Cited reference searching enables you to find articles that have cited a previously published work. Through a cited reference search, you can discover how a known idea or innovation has been confirmed, applied, improved, extended, or corrected. Every reference listed on the page has been cited by at least one article indexed in Web of Science.

Cited references are sorted alphabetically by cited author. References containing the same cited author are sorted alphabetically by cited work. References with the same cited author and cited work are sorted in reverse chronological order by cited year.

For more assistance, Web of Science offers a tutorial of their features.

PsycINFO

PsycINFO is an abstract (not a full-text) database of psychological literature from the 1800s to the present. An essential tool for researchers, PsycINFO combines a wealth of content with precise indexing to get just what is needed easily. The database contains citations and summaries of the international literature in psychology and related behavioral and social sciences, including psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, education, pharmacology, and linguistics. Includes applied psychology, communication systems, developmental psychology, educational psychology, experimental human and animal psychology, personality, physical and psychological disorders, physiological psychology and intervention, professional personnel and issues, psychometrics, social processes and issues, sports psychology and leisure, and treatment and prevention.

Cited References Description:

Since 2001, the records in PsycINFO have included cited references appearing in journal articles, books, and book chapters. Although comprehensive coverage of cited references began in 2001, references appear in some records for earlier years, and APA will continue to add retrospective coverage. As they do, we will list counts by year on the "help" page noted below.

Select the find citation tab from the choices above the search box. This tab enables you to search for articles that match citation information. The more citation information you enter, the more precise the search will be. You can select by article title, author's last name, initial, publication year, journal name or ISSN.

For more information: see the American Psychological Association (APA) Style Tips help page.

SciFinder Scholar & SciFinder

SciFinder Scholar and SciFinder provide online access to several databases, including Chemical Abstracts, Registry, CASREACT, CHEMLIST, CHEMCAT, and MEDLINE. They provide access to CAplus, a database of chemical literature and U.S. and foreign chemical-related patents, CASREACT, and the Registry database from Chemical Abstracts Service.

They include journal articles, book chapters, patents, conference proceedings, technical reports, substance database and dissertations covered in Chemical Abstracts as well as articles currently being indexed, book reviews and biographical information. They cover chemistry, biotechnology, agricultural chemistry, toxicology, environmental science, medicine, and food science, from 1907 to the present. They also includes compounds identified in the CAS registry since 1957.

Both provide access to cited references, as well as citing references. See steps below.

SciFinder Scholar

SciFinder Scholar is a database available on all library and CIT lab workstations, where it is listed in the START menu. To use SciFinder Scholar on your personal or office computer, however, you must download SciFinder Scholar, using the steps provided.

To view the Cited and/or Citing References corresponding to your search results, click on the Get Related button at the bottom of the screen.

Select Cited References to view the references cited in the selected documents.

Select Citing References to view the references citing the selected documents.

SciFinder

This is the new web version of the database. It does not require downloading, and may be accessed from any computer. You must, however, create an account, using the links provided. The account is free to Cornell students, faculty and staff.

To view the Cited and/or Citing References corresponding to your search results, look at the top of the list of results, and:

Select Get Cited to view the references cited in the selected documents.

Select Get Citing to view the references citing the selected documents.

For more information on SciFinder Scholar citations, see How to... Identify Related Citations, then scroll down to Cited References or Citing References.

May 31, 2008 (nm)
Tony Cosgrave, ajc5@cornell.edu
Collections, Reference, Instructions and Outreach
Cornell University Library