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CHEM 5200: Science Research Literature and Writing

Useful resources for Chemistry 5200 and includes access information and search guides for Chemistry databases

Follow the Citation Chain

Citation chaining allows the searcher to move forward and backward through the scientific literature. It allows you to find authors who are currently working in a research area, as well as those who have done work in the past.

Forward chaining works best when you have a highly relevant older article that has been cited. Scopus allows you to track the journal articles that have cited the article, allowing you to see who has built on the research presented in that article. You should search by article title, using quotation marks to make the database search for the title as a phrase. The resulting record for your article will tell you the times the article has been cited and you can see the citing articles by going to the full article record.

Backward chaining works with any article. Note citations in the article and consult the references to discover past articles that you should review and cite in your own work. Pay attention to both the titles of the works cited and where the works are cited in the text. This is because some titles may not seem relevant, but how they are cited can indicate a different way of looking at the topic, and they may be highly relevant.