"Cited Reference Searching" is basically finding articles that "cite" the source article in its references. Or put another way this enables you to determine approximately how many times an author or a specific publication has been cited in other published works. It is a way to evaluate the impact of an article or author and also a way to do some "forward" searching on a topic. It is "approximate" since there is no perfect or comprehensive method.
For a long time, cited reference searching was only available in Web of Science. It still remains the 'gold standard' and most researchers use the metrics in WoS to support their scholarly research and to apply for funding. However, there are many more tools available and one of them is Google Scholar.
Results will vary when you search for the same item in both resources since Google Scholar searches a broader universe of information.
Now many databases, provide cited reference searching capabilities - a few relevant ones are listed below:
Compendex (has Scopus cited reference data)
IEEE Xplore
In Web of Science, "Begin" your search.
Searching by author you can find all of their articles, and the number of times each article has been cited. You can then view those citations as well.
By searching a specific article you will find all the articles that have cited that article. Within your results, sort by "Times Cited" This will bring the articles most often cited to the top of the list.
You can also search using the "Cited Reference Search" option by searching author or cited work. You will see the number of "citing articles." Select article or articles and click "Finish". You will see the articles that cited the article(s) that you are interested in. To confirm: click on the title and review the "Cited References list."
Click Create Citation Report to see a graph by year. This can also help help you determine the importance of the article, and the research it reports, by finding how often it has been cited each year and more.
(Thanks to my colleague Cathy Outten for this description)
This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new windowYou can search by author, title of item, keywords.. Just like in Google, there is a "Advanced Search."
Conduct your search and then look for the "Cited by" link underneath the record.