An academic discipline is a community that is structured around a particular area of study. The scholarship undertaken by researchers in this kind of community is a lot like a conversation. Researchers enter into a dialogue with an existing body of knowledge in an attempt to create new knowledge. 

An article in a scholarly journal, like Assessing Risk Following a Wireless Emergency Alert: Are 90 Characters Enough? by Mark A. Casteel and Joe R. Downing, is an example of how this process is done in psychology, as well as communication arts and the sciences. It represents a single contribution to a much broader discussion, specifically does a 90 character Weather Emergency Alert ”effectively communicates the risk and severity of the storm"?

As social science researchers, Casteel and Downing craft this article in ways that speak directly to other scholars doing similar research. To motivate and support her argument with this audience, they present a wealth of evidence through parenthetical citations. This evidence bolsters their credibility. But it can also be used to formulate a research focus of your own. Each source cited is a conversational thread that can be followed.

Let’s say, for example, you were interested in learning more about how people use their smartphones in times of crisis [see the passage below].

How could you find more information? You can start by looking at the parenthetical citations (e.g., Austin or Sutton, Palen, & Shklovski) and finding them in the References.

You can mine references like these to find more relevant articles.

(adapted from https://guides.library.appstate.edu/researchstrategies/citation_mining)

Mining citations of a relevant article/book can help you find more potentially useful resources.. 

• All of the references in article by Casteel and Downing look back in time. 
  • To determine if Penn State has access to the article's full-text, search the article title in the main search box on the University Libraries’ main page. https://libraries.psu.edu/

• If it’s a book (e.g. Communicating Environmental Risk in Multiethnic Communities), search the title in our online catalog, the CAT.
• You can also search Google Scholar for items.
  • Search tip:  When searching Google Scholar always come via the library website so you won't be prompted to pay for resources we have.
  • Search part of all of the article title.

Click the "Cited By" link to see the items that have cited the original work.

NOTE: If Penn State does not have access to a particular article or book, you can always request that item through Interlibrary Loan.

As you read these articles, pay attention to the language researchers use to describe the concepts or events you're researching.

Being prepared with terms to search will allow you to:

• Broaden or narrow your focus to include related concepts and events.
• Find other relevant articles in the literature that are not cited in the original article.

Below is a subject guide that will get you started searching for relevant literature in your field. That said, there are many other resources that could be helpful. Look at everything listed under Education and Psychology and/or Communications and News on this page.

As you locate articles, look closely at their individual records. Many of them will have something called Subject Terms. These are how databases organize information, tagging all articles on the same topic with same Subject Term. Often, they contain lots of jargon and/or odd punctuation. But finding relevant terms can help you find relevant articles. [See highlighted text in example below.]