Guide to Cited Reference Searching in Web of Science
About Web of Science
The Web of Science consists of three different citation databases:
- Social Sciences Citation Index
- Arts & Humanities Citation Index
- Science Citation Index
These three indexes can be used to search for articles on a given topic or by a given author or title. However, cited reference searching is what makes these indexes unique. Cited reference searching can tell you who has cited (referred to) previously published works. This allows you:
- to find more recent articles which update earlier research
- to find responses to an article
- to see how influential an article has been
- to identify other articles on the same topic as the original work
Accessing Web of Science
You can access Web of Science by entering web of science in the Title Quick Search box on the Libraries' homepage or by selecting Find articles by subject, then General & Multidisciplinary. If you accessing Web of Science from off-campus, you will be asked to authenticate using your Passport York account or Library barcode and PIN.
How to Search for Cited References for a Specific Article
1. After entering Web of Science, select Cited Reference Search.
By default, all three indexes are turned on. You have the option to turn off any of the three indexes. Select Change Limits and Settings to deselect an index. Since each index covers a pool of journals for that particular area, you may find that excluding a particular pool is helpful. Leaving all the indexes activated will cover a broader range of journals.
2. If you want to search for cited references to a particular article, enter the author, cited work and year information. Note that cited work refers to the name of the journal in which the article you are interested in appeared. The image below demonstrates how you would find cited references for (i.e., articles referring to) the following article:
Schellenberg, E.G., & Trehub, S.E. (1996). Children's discrimination of melodic intervals. Developmental Psychology. 32, 1039-1050.
3. After running the search, you will get a list of results. You will see under Citing Articles the total number of times it has been cited. If variations of the citation are found, you might get several results that refer to the same article. This situation happens when there are variations or errors in the citations in bibliographies. Select all the results to which you want to find cited references and select Finish Search.
4. You will get a list of all the papers (tracked by Web of Science) that have cited your article. If these are highlighted blue you may click on them to find more information about these articles.
How to Search for the Number of Times a Particular Author has been Cited
If you are interested in determining the impact of a particular author, it is possible to modify your search to determine how many times all of the author's works have been cited. When entering the search data (see #2 above), enter only the author's name and exclude the Cited Work and Cited Year(s) data. Your results list will include all authors found with that particular name so you may have to determine which results to select before proceeding to Finish Search (as outlined in #3 above).
Note: There may be a discrepancy between the aggregated number of Times Cited for an author's individual articles (as shown in your initial search results) and the total number of times an author is cited (after you select all relevant articles by your author and Finish Search). For an explanation of this discrepancy, please contact Adam Taves or Mark Robertson in the Scott Library Reference Department.
Limitations of Web of Science Cited Reference Data
Web of Science does not include all scholarly publishing. For example, only a portion of all scholarly journals published are included in Web of Science. In addition, Web of Science does not track the cited references in books. As a result, the cited reference results provided by Web of Science are not comprehensive.
To supplement Web of Science, you can consult other resources that track cited reference. See Guide to Cited Reference Searching for other options.
