There are two basic ways to find information once you start researching your topic:
- citation searching
- subject-specific searching.
Citation searching
Searching by citations is a useful way to find research directly related to your topic. In citation searching you use a work of scholarly literature to find more literature that was cited by that work or cites that work. Citation searching can be done two ways:
- Citation chasing:
- Looking at the Bibliography or References of an article or book that fits within your topic.
- Looking in the "past" at work an article references.
- Cited reference searching
- Using a citation indexing service, like Google Scholar, to find research that cites a specific article or work.
- Looking in the "future" at works that referenced a specific article.
Using citations to search for scholarly literature can help you think more broadly about your research topic within the larger discipline, and help you answer the following questions:
- Who/what are the big names and articles in this area?
- Who is this research in conversation with?
Subject-specific searching
Searching within your subject area will give you more specific research that speaks to your own research topic.
- Use your subject library databases to find relevant and subject-specific databases.
- Contact your subject librarian for a one-on-one session.
