Research Tips and Tutorials

Citation Chaining is a technique for finding related information sources by using article networks, including bibliographies and cited by information. Citation chaining can help you trace back to the roots of important ideas or movements or start from the beginning stages and see how things grow. 

How does it work?

When you locate an article in a database that looks relevant to your research, look for links to Bibliographies (also known as Cited References) or Cited By (also known as Times Cited) information. 

Bibliographies or Cited References

• A bibliography contains the cited references that the author(s) used when writing and researching the article. 
• Think of bibliographies as backward articles networks.

Cited By or Times Cited

• A Cited By page will list citations/reference that have since cited the article you found.
• Think of Cited By lists as forward articles network. 

Article Networks in Google Scholar - video tutorial created by UC Merced