Citation chaining is a research strategy that you can use to find more sources by starting with a single pertinent article. Citation chaining is recommended for any search, but there are two specific scenarios where it would be particularly useful:
Almost all scholarly journal articles cite other articles and are cited by other articles. Citation chaining helps you to find more relevant articles for your paper as well as giving you a sense for how the topic has evolved over time.
On this page, you will learn two different step-by-step processes for finding new articles based on a single one you found that really captures your topic. We'll refer to your starting article as "Article A."
Backwards citation chaining involves looking at the reference list of your "Article A" to find out which sources that article cited. If any of the articles on the reference list look relevant, you can track down those articles and call it a day. You might want to “chain” backwards even further, however, by tracking down the articles cited by THOSE sources. How far back you go depends both on how many articles you're hoping to find and how recently you want the items on your final article list to have been published.
"Article A" is great, and it builds on previous research.
Go to the list of References, Works Cited, Bibliography, or Notes of your "Article A." Make note of any titles that interest you.
Once you have made note of the articles you want to track down, the easiest way to find them is by typing the title of the article into the Novanet search. Once you have located the article, click "Available online."
On the next screen, scroll down to the "View online" section, where you should see one or more links to access the full text. Click the first link to connect with the article!
The video below also walks you through the process of finding a known/specific article.
Forward citation chaining involves checking to see if your "Article A" has been cited by anyone since it was published. This approach can help you find more recent articles and give you a sense of how the topic has evolved since "Article A" was written.
One simple way to find out which articles have cited "Article A" is to use Google Scholar. In Google Scholar, as shown in the example below, type or paste the title of the article into the search box.
If any articles have cited "Article A," you will find a "Cited by" link below the article citation. Click "Cited by" to open a new Google results list that includes all of the articles found on Google Scholar that cited your "Article A.". As with Backwards Chaining, you can now peruse these articles and decide which ones will be useful for your research. You can access many articles directly through Google Scholar, or try Novanet if you are hitting paywalls.
If you want to continue the chain, follow the same process with any of the new articles you found. When you start finding that your articles aren't cited by many (or even any) other researchers, you've probably caught up to the most recent literature on the topic.