BIOA01 & BIOA02: Research & Writing Help

In scholarly publications, citations are a list of sources usually located at the end of an article or book chapter.  Depending on the style manual used, these lists may be called references, works cited, bibliographies, or endnotes. They all contain citations.

Review articles synthesize known research on a specific topic. They typically summarize past research, identify important people in the field, outline recent advances, and point out gaps in a body of knowledge. 

Review articles are well-cited, and can provide a great source of citations as a starting point for more extensive research.

Forward chaining allows you to move forward in time to find articles that cite a published work, usually using citation indexes. Keep in mind that there is a delay between when an article is published and when it is cited by other researchers and begins to appear in citation indexes. A very recent article may have few forward citations.

You can use articles or books you have already found as a starting point to get more materials on your topic. Look for a list of citations listed at the end of the publication. The list may be called 'References', 'Bibliography', or 'Works Cited', depending on the referencing style that was used.  Locate these items by searching for books in the Catalogue, or for articles in Article Finder.

This technique is called backward citation chaining.