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Citation Indexes

What is a citation?

If you wrote an article: ‘The joy of study: 127 different positions for achieving a happier healthier distinction.'and I read it and then wrote an article using some of your ideas or quoting directly from ‘The joy of study: ‘I would be citing you in my article. I might put a reference in the body of my article ( in-text citation ) and I would certainly put the full bibliographic details of your article in my reference list at the end of my article.

If another researcher (Dr. L Pinchen) then read my article and was heartily impressed, s/he could see that all my best ideas came from your article and then s/he could go back and read your article for themselves. S/he could then write an article and cite both you and me.

So, it would look like this:

Dr M E Person - writes 'The Joy of Study….' in 2003

then,

Dr C Munro cites Dr M E Person's article in her article 'Joy and study - a cultural perspective' 2004. So Dr M E Person's article appears in Munro's bibliography.

Dr L Pinchen then writes an article - 'Who said study was joy? The cultural misconceptions of a bunch of librarians!' and cites Dr C Munro and Dr M E Person in her/his bibliography. 2005

What is a citation index?

To track citations through time – (you begin with an article by a specific author and then look to see who has read and quoted or referred to that article – this is a citation) – you need to use a Citation Index.

There are three Citation Indexes –

• The Science Citation Index;

• The Social Sciences Citation Index and

• The Arts and Humanities Citation Index.

The Citation Indexes come in two forms: print and online. The online version is Web of Science.

What is the Web of Science?

The Web of Science offers a comprehensive online indexing and citation service covering 8,500 journals and is the current version of all three citation indexes. You can access it from the Library's Journal Databases page

How do I use it?

Online tutorials to assist you with using The Web of Science are available at -

Web of Science Citation Searching

How many citation indexes can I search at one time?

In The Web of Science you can search one, two or all three citation indexes simultaneously. And you can search across a range of years – you set the time limits.

How do I use the Analyze function?

The Web of Science also allows you to analyse the results of any search you do.

The analyze function ranks the results so you can see which authors or institutions are publishing most in this area.

The Analyze function will rank the top 100-500 researchers (authors) or institutions related to a particular field of enquiry. Two online tutorials on this function are:

analyse (how to rank search results by isntitution and author )

What about searching before 1982?

Only citing articles after 1982 are listed in Web of Science. If an article published after 1982 cites an article published before 1982, then it will appear in Web of Science.

You cannot find what articles were cited by an article published before 1982.

If you need to find references prior to 1982, you will need to use the print versions of the Citation Index you need.

The Science Citation Index S016.505/22 for the years 1964-1966; 1970-1990 (Flowers Room Auchmuty Library)
The Social Sciences Citation Index. S016.3005/3 for the years 1966/70-1991 (and further) (Flowers Room Auchmuty Library)
The Arts and Humanities Citation Index RS016.05/12 1976-1992 (in Closed Black Stack, Auchmuty Library)

You will need to look at one year in one index at a time. It's slower but you'll get quite fast at it when you get the hang of it.

How do I use the print version of a Citation Index?

To use the print form of an index, you first need to find the part of the set you will use – the citation volumes.

Citation Indexes produce 4 separate indexes each year:

a Source Index;
a Permuterm Index;
a Corporate Index and
a Citation Index.

These are all shelved together. The Citation Index may be 2 volumes and will have an alphabetical range on the spine. Make sure the spine doesn't say any of the other names above.

Next, you need to find the name of the author – these are listed in alphabetical order. When you find the correct author, you will find the articles they wrote which have been cited in that year. The articles are represented by the abbreviated title of the journal, the article was printed in.

Then, you will see that beneath each article (and indented) are listed (again in abbreviations) the author and bibliographic details needed to find the articles which actually cited your author's article.

You need to be careful of several things:

• make sure you have found the correct author and

• be careful to find the specific article by that author.

You will need to do thisfor each year.

In some cases, an article may not appear in a particular volume/year, because in that year, no-one cited that article, even though your author may be listed. So don't get bamboozled and start following up the citations of another article.

Printed instructions on using the Citation Indexes should be available for you

in the Flowers Room,
on the inside cover of the citation index itself, and
help is also available from the Information Desk of the Auchmuty Library (in the Information Common).

Reference Linking Functions in other databases

Warning: You may notice that other subject databases have citation indexing options or can be searched in this way. Do not rely on this. They only give you the citing authors in their database. The article you are tracking may have been cited by other authors not in this database.

For a more complete and thorough list, always do a search on the book or online version of the Citation Indexes.