ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Citation index

Citation indexing is a way to help people find scientific articles and other written works. It lets people look for articles and works that have been mentioned in other works. If a scientist writes a paper, they can use citation indexing to find out if other scientists have written about similar things. They can then look at the other scientists' works to see what they have to say about the topic. This can help them understand the topic better and help them make their own work better.