A citation trail is a link from an article or book to a second article or book, connected in some way to the first article. If you find an article that is important or relevant to your work, you should follow the citation trails to find similarly important or relevant articles.
The number of citations an article gets may indicate the relative importance of that article in the field or discipline. Generally, the higher the list of citations, the more that article has been used as a resource for subsequent research, which would suggest that the article's research and conclusions are sound. However, if an article is very recently published (within the last two or three years), it may not have many citations regardless of its value.
Note: High citation counts are only a proxy for quality. You still need to read and make your own evaluation of the article's credibility and trustworthiness.
Citation mining, or citation chaining, involves using discovered sources to find more related to a research topic. It aids in discovering literature through existing sources by utilizing citations to uncover more articles connected to the research subject.
Forward Citation Search: A search to find all of the articles that cite back to a specific article. This search looks forward in time to see how this article contributed to the scholarly conversation.
Backward Citation Search: A search to find all of the cited references in a single article. This search looks backwards in time to see what led to the article you start with.
Author Citation Search: A search to find all articles by an author or group of authors.
Find sources fast! LibGuide. University Libraries, George Mason University. (2022, January 3). https://library.gmu.edu/tutorials/citationmining
Similar to tools for forward citation mining, there are tools for related item mining in different databases, each with its distinct features and functions. While exploring a database, watch for prompts such as "related articles" or "browse similar content" to discover similar tools. Look for author searches or related subjects for additional links. It is essential to use and explore various resources to broaden your search results and improve your search strategy.
Notice that all of these articles are from the same author, it shows how often an author can write other related articles and may co-author with new people to research. Often databases allow you to click on an author name to find all things written by that person
Google Scholar is a web search engine that catalogs scholarly literature from various publishing formats and disciplines. To discover articles that have referenced your original work, click on the "Cited by" link in a Google Scholar search result to explore newer sources of information related to the original resource.
Evaluating where and how often an article has been cited is a good way to find the perceived usefulness of an article.
The EBSCO Databases now offers a feature with each article you choose. bX is a discovery tool that should recommend resources for readers in a similar manner to Amazon or other e-commerce sites comparing results, keywords, and other information. They may or may not be part of the original articles' reference list.
