Library Guides: Cited Reference Searching: A How-To Guide: Science & Technology

Tips for Searching in Each Database

Academic Search Ultimate
This database covers almost all subject areas and is especially good at interdisciplinary areas. Good place to start for class assignments. It contains full text articles for more than 6,500 journals.
ACM Digital Library
Not possible to search within references specifically. Advanced search defaults to searching all information. Allows you to see references and also “citings” within ACM Digital.

American Chemical Society journals
Not possible to search within references specifically. Search “anywhere.”
Annual Review of...series (mainly science with some social science)
Not possible to search within full-text, but can search within References.

ASABE Technical Library
Search using “find words anywhere.” This will look within references. Will not search through PDF – only HTML. Not possible to search refs in pre-2001 articles.

CiteSeer (computer & information science)
Allows searching references as well as full-text.

Compendex
Not possible to search within references or full-text specifically; however, results screen will show number of times cited in Scopus.
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global
Offers ability to search special fields: CAU = Cited Author, CTI = Cited Title, CPUB = Cited Publication, and REF = References. Example for how to format searches: CAU(smith) and CTI(rana pipiens).

Emerald journals (engineering, applied science)
Advanced Search will find references in full text using the “all fields” search. Also, when you look at a journal article within Emerald, click on HTML version and above the information about the journal article you will see something that looks like: "Downloads: The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 1159 times since 2006." While this is not the number of times it has been "cited," it does give some indication of how often that article has been viewed. Emerald also provides usage data for specific articles "on request" - contact them and ask. They usually provide number of downloads per year for the article - and comparative data for other articles within the same journal.
Google Books
Use combination of author name and keywords from the title. Will search full-text but cannot specify you want it to search within the references. May have misleading results. No guarantee author name will be near keywords.

Google Scholar
(All disciplines) Recommend searching with author name inverted as well as non-inverted. Will search full-text but cannot specify you want it to search within the references.
GreenFILE
Look for Cited References button at top of screen.
IEEE Xplore
Not possible to search within references specifically. Use Advanced Search and change to search within “full text & metadata.” Results screen contains link to “cited by” within IEEE. Scroll to bottom of reference list to see more detail. Not available on pre-1995 articles.

Institute of Physics journals
Not possible to search within references specifically. Search within full text will search only PDF files.

JSTOR
Advanced search within full text will pull up author names in references.
MathSciNet
Search using the Publications tab--can search in References only. In results list, can also click on PDF to see if it has been cited by others in MathSciNet.

ProQuest databases advanced search (all disciplines)
Offers ability to search special fields: CAU = Cited Author, CTI = Cited Title, CPUB = Cited Publication, and REF = References. Example for how to format searches: CAU(smith) and CTI(rana pipiens). Not all ProQuest databases have these fields assigned/indexed.

PubMed
Not possible to search within references specifically. Search for a particular article in the database, then click the article title to display the article abstract. Look for “Cited by # PubMedCentral articles" on the right side of the page; may need to expand "See all."
ScienceDirect
(Science and economics) Advanced Search has option for searching within References. In results list, clicking on article title will bring up page that shows citing articles in right sidebar.
SciFinder Classic
Not possible to search within references specifically. Locate a specific article using a topic or author search – and look at full record – look for Get Related button. Cited references will only retrieve the ones indexed in SciFinder.
Scopus
Use Document Search and change the drop-down menu to search within the References - OR - use Author Search to look for all items by a specific author and then use "show documents" and then "view cited by."
SpringerLink
(Science, technology, medicine) Not possible to search within references specifically. Use search box for “all text.” All text search will pull up names in references if the article is available full text.

Researchers can purchase access to locked content, but we recommend you place an Interlibrary Loan request for these items as we can usually supply copies of them to you for no charge within 24-48 hours.
Web of Science Core Collection
Cited Reference Search is a clickable option above the search box. Not possible to search references using title words.

Wiley Online Library-Advanced search
Use Advanced Search page option for “References.” Full text search does not search reference lists. Difficult to narrow down to a specific citation if author name is common.