Using EBSCOhost Databases to Search for Cited References
We get many of our research databases on the EBSCOhost platform. Although the interface is very similar in all instances, there is some slight variation in the initial display. And since some of the indexes are actually created by other companies, with Ebsco providing access, not everything works exactly the same in all files. I will take my examples from Academic Search Complete (ASC), which is our best broad-based database.
There are a couple of ways to search for cited references in most Ebsco databases.
Our ASC opens in an Advanced Search screen but there is also a link to Cited References searching in the top blue banner of the Basic Search screen. Click this to do the Cited References search.
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On the Cited Reference Screen, I could put in selected bits of information from the cite of the original Trivers article. As in the below screenshot.
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The resulting page would list the articles that cite Trivers and provide access if the full-text is available....And it often will be.
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There is a second way to search for cited references. It is sloppier BUT it almost always gets you more results. Simply search for key terms in the full-text of the articles in the database. As in the below.
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When I search for Trivers in this way, I get over 500 hits, instead of 8. Big difference! Some might be false drops. And this will certainly be the case if all the keywords you are looking for are too common. (Searching for cites of an article by a Smith entitled Computers would just not work.) But in the below screenshot, you see that the first two articles are about reciprocal altruism. Both cited Trivers (I checked), but neither was in the 8 articles retrieved through the official cited reference search.
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So, if you just need a few reliable cited references, the Cited References search will work. But if you are doing a more exhaustive literature review, you might consider the less precise second approach.
And remember that searching within the full-text of articles, as I've just illustrated, will also work in many other databases.