Library Guides: BIO323 Research Skills Guide: Citation databases

Why use citation databases?

Citation databases can be used for cited reference searches, enabling you to find, check and track citation data year-by-year, navigating forward and backward through the literature related to a topic.

You can use a citation database to:

Distinguish between authors with the same name, or an author's name that has been presented in different ways
Analyse search results to show the number of documents broken down by various criteria, including year, author, source, affiliation, or subject categories
Search within results by adding additional terms to the initial search
Identify highly cited works related to a particular topic
Find related works that share references or authors
Create search alerts to keep up to date with developments in your discipline
Set up citation alerts to notify you when a document or author is cited elsewhere
Set up alerts to notify you about new documents by an author
Generate a profile that presents an analysis and citation summary of works published by an institution or author(s), including h-index
Compare the performance of journals in a particular subject area

Citation databases

Scopus
A multi-subject abstract and citation database of research literature. Known for its citation-tracking and bibliometric features.
Scopus is an abstract and citation database of research literature which offers coverage of more than 22,000 journals, and more than 150,000 books, from more than 5,000 publishers. There are nearly 70 million records and 1.4 billion cited references. Most records date since 1996 but Scopus has recently added records dated from 1970 - 1995.

Scopus does not in itself include the full-text of articles, but many records in a results list will have a View at publisher link. If that link doesn't work, use the Find it link to search for the full article via Primo Search.

Subject coverage includes:
* Life Sciences
* Health Sciences
* Physical Sciences
* Social Sciences & Humanities.

Scopus has a number of specialised features relating to bibliometrics which are mainly used by higher degree researchers. But one feature that might have wider application is the ability to use the View Cited By function to find articles that cite your selected articles(s). You can also sort your results list by citation count.

A note on access for academic/research staff: If you are academic/research staff and require access to your Charles Sturt researcher profile, please use this link - https://www.scopus.com - and sign in using the "Access through your Institution" option. Type Charles Sturt University into the search box and follow the prompts.
Web of Science
A collection of 6 databases available in the Thomson Reuters interface, the most significant of which are: Web of Science Core Collection; Current Contents Connect; MEDLINE; and SciELO Citation Index. These databases can be searched together or individually.
Details of the 6 databases are:
* Web of Science Core Collection - a collection of 5 citation indexes and 2 chemical indexes, where you can, amongst other things, find citing articles (ie articles that have cited a specific reference);
* Current Contents Connect - a current awareness product which includes tables of contents and citations from journals from all disciplines;
* KCI-Korean Journal Database - features research emanating from South Korea, and covers about 2,000 scholarly journals;
* MEDLINE - the well-known international health and medicine database, produced by the (US) National Library of Medicine;
* Russian Science Citation Index - covers Russian research in fields such as engineering, materials science, and ecology, with more than 600 journals indexed;
* SciELO Citation Index (Scientific Electronic Library Online) - a program of the Sao Paulo Research Foundation for the cooperative publishing of open access journals, which includes regional journals from Latin America and the Caribbean as well as titles from Spain, Portugal and South Africa.

These databases can be searched together ("All Databases", which is the default) or individually. To change to a single database, click on the drop-down arrow beside All Databases in the main tab-bar of the Web of Science screen.

Most of the articles in this databases don't have the full-text attached, but you can use the Find it button, situated beneath each record, to locate the full-text in another online database or in a campus library print holding.

Please note: Web of Science does not work in Internet Explorer 6 or 7, or Internet Explorer 8 or 9 when running in Compatibility View. If you wish to use Web of Science with IE, you should update the version, and, in IE 8 or 9, hit F12 and check that your Browser Mode is not set to Compatibility View.

Citation searching

Following citations

There are two ways you can use citations to find additional resources:

Backward. You look at an information source's citation list - this will lead you to material that is older
Forward. You look at who has cited that information source - this will lead you to material that is newer

Following citations backward

This method helps you find information that is older. Keep this in mind if your lecturer would like you to use recent material.

Following citations forward

Some, but not all, databases have a feature that allows you to see who has cited the article you're looking at.

The database may not show you every citing article, so you may need to look in more than one database.

Support guides

Scopus tutorials - provide a visual and audio tour of Scopus and its functions.
Web of Science Guide - a quick reference guide