WILD 401: Fish and Wildlife Capstone

Citation analysis is a way to determine the impact of an author, an article, or an institution by tracking the number of times a work or an author has been cited by others. Unfortunately, this is not a simple process because there is no single source that covers all publications or their cited references. This section of the guide highlights some resources at the MSU Library that can help in the creation of citation counts.

What is cited reference searching?

Cited references are the articles, books or other materials listed in a bibliography or as works cited in a particular publication. Because citation databases index each reference, it is possible to search these cited references. One can follow a particular cited reference, or cited author, forward in time to find more current articles that have also cited that author or work.

Why use cited reference searching?

• To locate current research based on earlier research
• To find out how many times and where a publication is being cited
• To find out who is citing a particular paper
• To find out how a particular research topic is being used to support other research
• To track the history of a research idea
• To track the research history of a researcher
• To determine how well your own published research is cited for promotion/tenure considerations

Learn about ScholarWorks and how it can help you to boost your citation rates as well as to archive your publications, making it accessible to other researchers everwhere.