PTA-221 Project

PubMed is a health sciences search engine maintained by the National Library of Medicine. It contains millions of full-text, peer-reviewed articles and serves as an excellent supplement to CCC Library's health databases. PubMed is fairly straightforward to use, and you can perform a general keyword search from the main search screen (Image 1) as you would in Google. For more efficient and targeted searches, consider trying the procedure below:

1. Click on the "MeSH Database" link (Image 1). MeSH standards for MEdical Subject Headings, and they are used by NLM to organize biomedical literature. These will be used in the same way that subject headings are in EBSCO and ProQuest databases.

2. Once you have clicked on the link, enter your chosen topic into the MeSH search bar and click "Search" (Image 2).

3. PubMed will then return the most relevant MeSH headings for your topic (Image 3). Tick the checkbox next to your selected heading and click on "Add to Search Builder."

4. If you wish to add multiple subject headings, simply search for the others using the MeSH search bar after adding your first term to the search builder. Click "Add to Search Builder" as you did with the first term. DO NOT CHANGE THE DROP-DOWN MENU FROM AND UNLESS YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN YOU WANT TO DO SO. Once all your terms are added to the search builder, click "Search PubMed" (Image 4).

5. The search results page offers multiple limiters on the left-hand side under "My NCBI Filters" (Image 5). I strongly urge you to use the date and Free Full Text Limiters to narrow down your results (Images 5 and 6).

6. Full text of articles may only be available through an external site, so please look for the "Full Text Links" heading on the right-hand side of the page if the article is not available via HTML full text (Image 7).

If you have any difficulties searching PubMed, contact Robert Krzanowski at rkrzanowski@carrollcc.edu or 410-386-8337.