LibGuides: MEDLINE: PubMed and Ovid Platforms: PubMed

PubMed

PubMed was developed and is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at NLM.

PubMed is comprised of a wealth of citations from the MEDLINE database as well as other life science journals and online books not included in MEDLINE. PubMed also provides access to additional relevant Websites and links to the other NCBI molecular biology resources.

Tools for learning how to search in PubMed:

Tips for Using PubMed (PDF)
A document with tips for searching in PubMed.
PubMed: Find Articles from a Citation tutorial
Interactive tutorial on searching for an article from a citation.
PubMed: Find Articles on a Topic tutorial
Interactive tutorial on how to search for articles by topic.
PubMed: Find Articles by an Author interactive tutorial
Interactive tutorial on searching for articles by author.
PubMed: Find the Latest Treatment for a Disease or Disorder tutorial
Interactive tutorial on searching for up to date treatment and disorders.
PubMed: Get the Full Text of an Article tutorial
Interactive tutorial on searching for full-text articles.
PubMed: Save Searches and Set E-mail Alerts tutorial
Interactive tutorial on how to save searches and create email alerts in PubMed.
PubMed Help
PubMed comprehensive help manual.
PubMed Online Training
A listing of available PubMed online trainings, including tutorials and quick tours. Some require Adobe Flash player.

Tech Tuesday webinars: Basic and Advanced PubMed

Basic PubMed
This webinar explores how to perform basic tasks in PubMed: accessing full-text articles, using PMIDs, conducting a basic search, requesting an article via Interlibrary Loan, refining searches with filters, sorting search results with display options, creating an NCBI account, and saving a search/creating a search alert.
Advanced PubMed
The webinar explores more advanced features in PubMed: Boolean Operators, MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) and Automatic Term Mapping, the Advanced Search Builder, and Clinical Queries.

Using MeSH in PubMed

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), is the controlled vocabulary system applied to all articles in MEDLINE.

MeSH is:

uniform and consistent
arranged in a hierarchical manner called the MeSH Tree Structures
updated annually by professional indexers
a districtive feature of MEDLINE
MeSH vocabulary is used in both PubMed and Ovid platforms

Resource for learning more about MeSH:

Introduction: What is MeSH? tutorial
A brief overview of MeSH.

Applying Filters in PubMed

Filters allow you to make your search results more relevant. Filters allow you to limit your search results by date, article type, and other characteristics. Be careful when applying filters as the newest material added to the database may be eliminated from your results. Some Filters are MeSH terms and their use limits retrieval to indexed MEDLINE records.

PubMed Filters:

Appear on the left of search results
Click to apply a filter and click twice to deselect
Remember to clear all when finished

Examples of filters (on left-hand side of page) that can be used to refine a PubMed search: