When you find one relevant article, you can use it to help you find other sources on your topic. You can look at sources the article cited (older works) as well as works that cited it (newer works). This practice is sometimes referred to as citation chaining or cited reference searching.

^{Citation chaining by Iowa State University Library is licensed under CC BY SA 4.0 International}

Looking at Sources an Article Cited

To find older works, look at the relevant article’s reference list and read through the titles to identify ones that may be worth reviewing.

^{Image from de la Fuente, J., Santos, F. H., Garzón-Umerenkova, A., Fadda, S., Solinas, G., & Pignata, S. (2021). Cross-sectional study of resilience, positivity and coping strategies as predictors of engagement-burnout in undergraduate students: Implications for prevention and treatment in mental well-being. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, Article 596453.}

If you find any that seem promising, you can search for their titles using the main search box on the library website.

Looking for Works That Have Cited an Article

You can also look forwards in time, to find articles that have cited the original one. To do this in PsycINFO, either in the list of search results or in an article’s record, click on “Find Citing Articles.” If other articles in the database have cited this one, you will see a list of all of those citing articles that you can browse.

Google Scholar is another place to look for citing works. Search for the original article’s title, then click on “Cited by #” to see the list of citing articles. You will likely find more citing articles in Google Scholar than PsycINFO, because Google Scholar is searching for any academic content it can find on the internet. This can include a variety of document types, including presentation materials and informally published works. Make sure to evaluate any results based on the types of sources you need for your assignment.

Next we will explore using APA style to cite your sources.