Cited Reference Search Policy and Procedures 

Cited Reference Search Policy

Librarians at Helmke Library offer cited reference searching as a service for IPFW faculty and staff. Information gathered from a cited reference search can help determine who is citing whom in the core journals of a discipline. It also shows the relative importance of journals within a discipline or specialty area, as evidenced by the "Impact Factor" and other scientometric measures.

The search process makes use of several resources licensed by IPFW. The major citation indexes produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), include the Science Citation Index, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. These resources are searchable through the library's Web of Science interface. Journal Citation Reports is an ISI resource that helps to analyze the relative importance of journals in the sciences and social sciences. In addition, the library licenses a growing number of other citation databases that trace cited references.

The information collected from a cited reference search can be reported in several ways including the following:

• A count of the number of times an author's work is cited
• A list of the source documents in which an author's work is cited
• A measure of the impact of the publications in which an author's work appears

Due to the time required to properly complete a citation search, it is our general policy that IPFW faculty and staff may request only one cited reference search per academic year. As an option, you may meet with your liaison librarian to learn how to complete a citation search yourself.

Some Cited Reference Search Caveats

Although citations to publications indicate some degree of impact of the publication on the particular field, it is not a perfect measure. Because of validity problems with citation searching, it should be used in conjunction with other information when presented for promotion and tenure purposes. The following caveats should be considered.

• The citation databases produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) do not track citations for every journal in existence.
• Although other resources in addition to ISI are consulted for a cited reference search, some disciplines will have much less-extensive citation index coverage than others. For example, scientific fields may have far more citations than some humanities fields.
• Recent research may not be cited. The time lag or immediacy factor varies significantly in different fields. Some scientific fields experience rapid citation at the research front, while others take years for research to be noticed.
• Citation rates can be influenced by a few authors citing one another or extremely high rates of self-citation.
• Cited reference searching works well to track citations appearing in periodical articles, but typically, it does not track citations for books, book chapters, and other types of published works. However, any type of published work could be referenced in a source article tracked by ISI or other publishers.
• Databases that track citations are not all inclusive. Journals from some fields may not be covered well and results will reflect this disparity.
• Entries in citation databases are not usually edited or corrected, but reflect the form of authors' names or cited works as they appeared in print. Therefore, mistakes made by authors in citing articles or by indexes in data entry may contribute to incorrect citation count errors.

The librarians at Helmke Library will search all appropriate IPFW licensed databases that cover your discipline to locate cited references. Librarians may need your assistance in confirming that all retrieved publications are yours due to variations in the form of citations. We will send you a detailed description of the search strategy and results. Remember, every citation-tracking database follows distinctive rules and conventions. The results of a cited reference search must then be examined carefully by the individual who requests this service.

Best Practices for Using Citation Data

Making a valid claim for the impact or importance of your research using citation data requires that you:

• Understand the limitations of cited-reference databases (completeness, coverage, citers' and indexers' precision and accuracy, and reasons for omissions),
• Experiment with search strategies to produce the most valid and complete report for your name and all possible name variants (including potential errors), and
• Reach closure by comparing results from different databases and compiling the results into one coherent portrayal of your body of research work.

Phrase the claim for impact as evidenced through citation relationships along these lines:

"I have been cited at least [xxx] times in [xxx] unique journals [or conference proceedings and other outlets appropriate to the field of study] in the literature of [research specialty or discipline]."

Finally, analyze how your impact has been appraised by others in the literature.  Retrieve and review the citing articles or in-text mentions of your work, and make a case based on the patterns that emerge.  Use bibliometric tools such as Web of Science's Analyze Results feature, or Journal Citation Reports (JCR) data to characterize the empirical distributions that describe your own work and that of others citing your research.

Requesting a Cited Reference Search

IPFW faculty and staff who would like assistance in doing a cited reference search should:

Contact the appropriate liaison librarian by phone or e-mail to begin the process.

• Find Your Librarian

Complete one of the following Cited Reference Search Request forms:

• Online form (fill out and submit online)
• Writable PDF form (fill out, print, and submit by mail)

Your liaison librarian will contact you to confirm all details. The time needed to complete a citation search depends on several factors, including the number of publications and prior commitments. Please contact your librarian in advance to discuss a suitable timeline for completion.