Literature Discovery through Citation Chaining and Mapping: About

Citation chaining helps you find papers by following citations through a chain of scholarly articles. It helps you trace the development of a research idea or theory over time. 

Method:

• usually start with a "perfect" article in hand (also called "seed" article)
• can be in two directions: Backward searching and forward searching based on this perfect article

Tools:

• Library's PowerSearch, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, Semantic Scholar, etc.
• Learn more from Citation Chaining Tools

Citation mapping uses a more visual approach to find papers through a network of citations and citation analysis between scholarly articles. It helps you identify key publications and authors, and understand the trends of a research field. 

Method:

• can start with one or a set of articles or a research topic
• use an online tool or software to generate citation maps of articles

Tools:

• CiteSpace, VOSviewer - to get an overview of a research field
• ResearchRabbit, Connected Papers, Inciteful, Litmaps - to get more papers based on one or a few relevant papers, or a topic search
• Learn more from Citation Mapping Tools

Source: How Library Stuff Works: Citation Chaining (2:40) - McMaster University Libraries

Other helpful videos:

• What is citation chaining? (2:03) - Claremont Colleges Library
• Citation Chaining with Google Scholar (1:27) - SeattleU Library