A method and apparatus combining spreading activation and citation analysis techniques to find related documents in collections of linked documents. Spreading activation is an analysis technique that may be used to find documents relevant to a set of focus documents. Citation analysis is an analysis technique used to indicate a reference or link relationship amongst the documents in a collection of linked documents. The results of citation analysis are used in spreading activation as an indicator of the strength of association amongst the documents in the document collection. When spreading activation is performed an indication of documents relevant to the set of focus documents, based on how documents or referenced or linked, is obtained.