PSYC 200: Rendon, L. (Winter 2025): Track down cited sources you find online
Have you ever found an article from a newspaper, magazine, or journal online cited in a Wikipedia article... or have you ever found the perfect article online and then a paywall or log-in wall came down and prevented you from reading the full article? The good news is that you can still use these sources, if you know how to check if your TCC Library has access to these articles! This is called "cited reference searching" or "citation searching." The tips below will help you track down the original source in the TCC Library databases.
Track down cited sources you find online -- this is called "cited reference searching"
What Are Cited References?
Cited references are the articles, books or other materials listed in a bibliography -- called a "references" list or "works cited" page -- at the end of a journal or magazine article, book chapter, encyclopedia article, etc.
Knowing how to do a cited reference search is a very useful research skill! It's almost like doing research backwards!
What's a "Cited Reference Search"?
So a "cited reference search" (also known as "citation searching") is when you try to locate the specific source that is cited -- you use clues from the information provided in the citation to find the original source.
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TCC Library video tutorial: Cited reference searching
- Cited reference searching (Panopto, 2020)Click this link to view this TCC Library video tutorial, created in Panopto, in a new window.
Steps for citation searching, with examples
Searching From a Citation
This scenario has probably happened to you:
What happens if you find an article from a newspaper, magazine, or journal online... can you still use it, and how can you tell if your TCC Library has it?
Your research assignments may require you to use TCC Library resources, so let's explore how you would investigate if the TCC Library has access to the SAME newspaper, magazine, or journal article that you find online. Odds are we do -- or we can get it for you for free! (These steps also work if you see a citation for an article listed in the references at the end of a Wikipedia article, etc.)
Complete the Following Steps
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Identify the title of the periodical (newspaper, magazine, or journal you want) plus the date the article was published.
Here's an example from a Google search result. This comes from the Washington Post (a newspaper), and it's dated May 4, 2016.
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Here's an example from the references list from a Wikipedia article about code switching. This comes from a journal called American Ethnologist, published in 2011 (Volume 38, Issue 4).
- Click on the "Periodicals A-Z" tab on our main Library home page -- or click the link below!
- Periodicals A-ZClick this link to see if the TCC Library has online or full-text access to a specific periodical (newspaper, magazine, or journal).
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Type in your journal title into the "Title begins with" search box
The examples below use the Washington Post and American Ethnologist periodicals:
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- Doublecheck the dates to make sure they match the date of the article you are looking for.
If they do match, then click on a database link to access articles in that specific journal.
- For the Washington Post article, we do have online access to the 2016 article. We would click the link to ProQuest to follow the trail to that article in that specific periodical.
- However, for the American Ethnologist article, which was published in 2011, we do NOT have online access to. That's because we only have online access to that journal from 1974 to 2009.
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If all else fails, request articles through InterLibrary Loan (ILL)
What do you do if the dates don't match, like in the example for the American Ethnologist article? Request the article through ILL, which is a service we provide FOR FREE to see if other libraries have an article or book that we don't have. For articles, you would get the article via e-mail.
Click the link below to request any article we don't have through InterLibrary Loan:
- InterLibrary Loan (ILL): InformationRequest a book or article from another library. Library staff can help you with this process.
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