Vet Med Library - Reference Services

Incomplete & Incorrect Citations: Guide

If you know an author name and the subject of a journal article, you can use any appropriate article database. This guide is meant to provide pointers for when you are dealing with an incomplete citation or with a citation that you suspect is incorrect. If you have only partial information on a given citation, or do not know exactly where a particular paper comes from, try "Single Citation Matcher" in PubMed or "Cited Reference Search" in Web of Science.

Single Citation Matcher (PubMed)

If you have any of the following information shown in the table below, you may be able to find the lost citation using this program.

Searchable Citation Information		Restrictions to a Citation Matcher Search
Journal Title Date of Publication Volume, Issue, or First Page Number Author Name- surname and initials		The citation needs to be included in MEDLINE. The citation must be to a journal publication. The publication date must be from 1966 or later.

Example: The only citation information you have is: v.72(6):512. You do not know what journal this article was from. Enter this information into the 'Single Citation Matcher' boxes. PubMed will retrieve the full citations (authors, article titles, and journal names) of least 5 possible papers:

Chueh H, Barnett GO.
"Just-in-time" clinical information.
Acad Med. 1997 Jun;72(6):512-7.
PMID: 9200584; UI: 97344057

Medema GJ, Schets FM, van de Giessen AW, Havelaar AH.
Lack of colonization of 1 day old chicks by viable, non-culturable Campylobacter jejuni.
J Appl Bacteriol. 1992 Jun;72(6):512-6.
PMID: 1644708; UI: 92355443

De Baets MG.
Leiomyosarcoma of the vena cava.
J Belge Radiol. 1989 Dec;72(6):512-3. No abstract available.
PMID: 2621205; UI: 90153831

Makanjuola RO.
Clinical and socio-cultural parameters in Nigerian psychiatric patients. A prospective study.
Acta Psychiatr Scand. 1985 Dec;72(6):512-21.
PMID: 4083057; UI: 86099853

Sztaba-Kania M, Placek W.
[Quantitative evaluation of T and B lymphocytes in the peripheral blood of patients with psoriasis].
Przegl Dermatol. 1985 Nov-Dec;72(6):512-6. Polish. No abstract available.
PMID: 3879540; UI: 86178508

Cited Reference Search (Web of Science)

The ISI Science Citation Index can be helpful, particularly when a citation is suspected to be incorrect (in volume or page number), when you are unsure whether the citation is to a journal article, or when the citation is older (i.e. pre-dating 1970). When you connect to the Web of Science, click on the 'Full Search' button. Then choose the 'Cited Reference Search' option. When using this database for citation verification, keep the following facts in mind:

Searchable Citation Information		Restrictions to a Cited Reference Search
Author - surname and initials Journal Title Date of Publication - possible year(s)		The reference must have been cited in a journal that is indexed by ISI. The citation is not limited to publication type. The date of the citing journal must be from 1994 or later.

Example: You have a citation as follows: Watson CJ. (1960). New Eng J Med. 253:1205. You now this citation to be incorrect, however, since a different article is found on page 1205 of NEJM volume 253. What you do not know is whether it is the page number, volume number, or year that has been cited incorrectly--it is even possible that the incorrect journal title was cited for this article. Using the Web of Science's 'Cited Reference' search option will facilitate the detective work required to locate the correct citation. Two examples of appropriate searches are:

Cited Author: WATSON CJ
Cited Work: NEW ENGL J MED [1]

OR

Cited Author: WATSON CJ
Cited Year: 1959 OR 1960 OR 1961

The second search will retrieve the following table of citations:

Hits	Cited Author	Cited Work	Volume	Page	Year
35	WATSON CJ	ARCH INTERN MED	103	436	1959
38	WATSON CJ	J LAB CLIN MED	54	1	1959
41	WATSON CJ	JAMA-J AM MED ASSOC	175	1087	1961
1	WATSON CJ	JAMA-J AM MED ASSOC	175	1807	1961
118	WATSON CJ	NEW ENGL J MED	263	1205	1960
1	WATSON CJ	NEW ENGL J MED	253	1205	1960

This search finds that there is only one article that made reference to this article using your original citation. On the other hand, over 100 articles have cited: Watson CJ. (1960). New Eng J Med. 263:1205. This is more than likely to be the correct bibliographic citation you were seeking.

Notes
1.You can type in the first 20 letters of the title, but you are likely to get better results using the ISI abbreviation of the journal name. To find the abbreviation used click on 'link' placed above the 'cited work' search box. After locating the journal in the alphabetical list, copy the ISI abbreviation onto the computer clipboard. Now use the 'back' button to return to the search screen, paste the abbreviation into the search box, and proceed with your search.