Find a specific paper on information retrieval method supporting literature research searching not by keywords but by documents
This is probably not the older article that you are looking for, but a colleague of mine published an article that shows how to identify the most relevant literature using free biblilometric tools such as VOSviewer. That is, by beginning with a topic search on a citation database (e.g. Scopus or Web of Science), you can identify the most relevant body of literature based on cocitations and other bibliometrics:


  Walsh, I., &amp; Renaud, A. (2017). Reviewing the literature in the IS field: Two bibliometric techniques to guide readings and help the interpretation of the literature. Systèmes d’Information et Management. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316560668_Reviewing_the_literature_in_the_IS_field_Two_bibliometric_techniques_to_guide_readings_and_help_the_interpretation_of_the_literature


Perhaps you'll get lucky and the original article you're looking for might be in their reference list.