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Once you have found some relevant or important articles on your topic, one way to expand your search is through citation searching. Citation searching looks for all of the articles or books that have cited your initial paper since it was written. There are two main databases you can use for this kind of search: Web of Science and Google Scholar. Both of these databases cover somewhat different sources, so it can be helpful to try both.
Search by the first author's name. Web of Science is picky - enter the last name first and then the first initial(s) without a period.
Find the entry that matches the article you had in mind. Especially look at the Cited Work and Year Column. Select that entry, then choose Finish Search.
Most databases allow you to narrow your search to certain kinds of articles - like review articles. Look for narrowing options (called facets) on the side of your search results page.
This example is from a Web of Science search. After searching for my keywords, I looked on the left-hand side of the page to refine my results by review articles. This lets me see articles that provide a broader summary of the research on my topic.
Most of us start a search with key words that we want to explore. Some additional search approaches are to:
Here are some tricks of the trade to make your searches more effective (these work in most databases):
Searching in Google? Try these tricks:
From: Hack College, Get More Out of Google
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