Citation searching allows you to:
- Go forward in time with the topic by looking at articles citing a key article.
- Go back in time with the topic when you read articles cited in the key article.
- See the importace of the key article by seeing how many times it's been cited.
- See chronological peaks and valleys for the topic of the key article by looking at the dates it has been cited.
- Identify institutions and geographic locations for the topic through an examination of who is citing the key article.
Citation searching goes beyond finding papers on your topic; it's a means of finding related information and of evaluating the importance of a single article.