This document provides an introduction to citation searching and analysis using various databases and tools. It discusses using Web of Science to conduct cited reference searches and author searches to find publications that have cited a given work or author. Citation analysis reports can be generated in Web of Science to analyze an individual author's citation metrics. Other library databases like ACM Digital Library and IEEE Xplore also feature cited reference ("Cited By") counts. Google Scholar provides cited reference data but may be inconsistent with counts from Web of Science which indexes a broader set of publications. The document outlines the basics of using these resources to explore citations to published works and scholarly authors.

1. Who Cited Me? An Introduction to Citation
Searching and Analysis
Roman Koshykar
Destination Intersession 2014

2. Who Cited Me?
Overview

3. What won’t be covered today
• Citation analysis is complex and (sometimes)
controversial!
• This session does not explore the more controversial
aspects around the RELATIVE importance of where
literature is published

4. What will be covered today
• How to discover what subsequent citations have been
made to literature once it has been published and
indexed
• Reference to a publication  Discover where else in
the literature it has been cited
• Name of a scholar  Discover where that scholar’s
work has been cited and generate a report on citation
activity

5. Who Cited Me?
Agenda

6. Session agenda
• Using Web of Science – Primary citation analysis
database
• Cited Reference Search
• Author Search
• Citation Analysis Reports
• Other library databases with “Cited By” features
• Cited reference data in Google Scholar

7. Who Cited Me?
Web of Science

8. What is Web of Science?
• Produced by Thomson Reuters and provided by the
RIT Libraries, Web of Science ambiguously refers to
two things: a resource platform containing several
databases, some of which are used for cited reference
searching (now called Web of Science Core
Collection)
• Web of Science combines several citation indexes
containing decades worth of cited reference data
• Find Web of Science using the Database Finder

9. Cited Reference Search
• Starting with a known reference, discover other publications that
have cited that source in their list of references
• Three basic search fields (cited author, cited work, cited year);
possible to add additional fields for more advanced searching
• Author names – syntax must be Last Name Initials with no
comma (so my name would be searched as KOSHYKAR RG, or
KOSHYKAR R* if you don’t know my middle initial)
• Journal titles are abbreviated, but abbreviations are inconsistent
– I often omit this field and select from results after searching
author name and pub year

10. Author Search
• Discover citations to an individual scholar’s work over the course
of his/her career
• Uses author name (same format as in Cited Ref Search), research
domain, and organizational affiliation to narrow down to the
individual scholar
• Generate reports on citations to that scholar’s work and on that
scholar’s publication history
• Keep in mind – ONLY sources that have been indexed by Web of
Science will be found and included in these citation analysis
reports

11. Citation Analysis Reports
• Reports are tied to the Author Search feature;
therefore they reflect one scholar’s publication history
• Create Citation Report – publications per year,
citations per year, sum of times cited, citations per
pub per year, most/least cited pubs
• Analyze Results – generate data on co-authors and
publication titles, export up to 500 records to Excel for
further processing

12. Who Cited Me?
Cited By in library databases

13. Cited By counts in individual databases
• Some other library databases offer “Cited By” searching as a valueadded service
• This is not a feature available in all library databases, and may be added
or removed with subsequent interface designs
• Cited By counts in individual databases only reflect citations from other
items indexed in that database
• If a citing source is not indexed in that database, it will be missed in the
Cited By feature
• Web of Science possesses the largest interdisciplinary data set for
citation data (except perhaps one other search system…)

14. Examples
• Cited By consistently appears in:
• ACM Digital Library
• IEEE Xplore
• Science Direct
• Cited By appears for some results in:
• EBSCOHost databases (labeled “Times Cited in This Database”)
• Certain ProQuest databases
• Engineering Village databases (via Scopus, which limits our use of data)

15. Who Cited Me?
Google Scholar

16. Citation data in Google Scholar
• Google Scholar search results often include a Cited
By number
• Google tends to put more highly cited results at the
top of your search results list
• However – Cited By does not display for all Google
Scholar results, and it may be inconsistent with
citation counts indexed by Web of Science

17. Google Scholar Citations
• Individual scholars can create profiles for themselves in Google
Scholar Citations, which will provide reports on citation
information to their work and appear when someone searches
Google Scholar for them by name
• Pros – free to use (requires a Google account); more literature
types are counted (e.g. books, patents, open source journals,
etc.)
• Cons – requires a Google account (subject to their terms and
conditions); service is still developing and Google may end it at
any time; users must opt in and create/maintain their own profiles
to generate citation reports

18. Who Cited Me? An Introduction to Citation
Searching and Analysis
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