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BIOL 442: Scientific Communication (Patrick)

This is the course guide for BIOL 442: Scientific Communication taught by Dr. Lorelei Patrick

Tracing Citations using the Library Catalog

The library catalog provides a convenient citation tracing tool called Primo Discover.

Finding Sources based on Citations

1. In order to effectively find a research article based upon a citation you will need to have the journal title, year, volume number and issue number. If you are missing this information from the citation, search for the title in Google Scholar.

Screenshot of Google Scholar search

 

2. Once you have a full citation, search for the journal title in the Forsyth Library Catalog. It is important to search for the journal title because though all journals appear in the catalog, not all articles within those journals do. You will know you have the correct item in your results because the word "Journal" will appear above the title.

screenshot of a journal result in the library catalog

3. When you click into the record you will see that there are multiple entries and each one has a different date range. Choose the link with the date range that contains the year for the citation you are tracing.

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4. In the database record for the journal, there will be a list of years, volumes, and issues. Choose the issue in which your article was published and navigate to your article.

Screenshot of issue list for journal

Tracing Citations Forward

If you want to know how other authors have responded to a specific article, you can look at who has cited the article since it was published. Search for the article title in Google Scholar and then click on the "cited by" link below the search result.

Screenshot of Google Scholar