Europe PMC is a repository that provides access to worldwide life sciences articles, books, patents and clinical guidelines. It supplies links to relevant records in databases such as Uniprot, European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), Protein Data Bank Europe (PDBE) and BioStudies.

• To access Europe PMC, go to LibrarySearch
• Log in using your CCCU username and password.
• If you are away from campus, or connecting with your own device over Wi-Fi, you will need to include @canterbury.ac.uk after your CCCU username [username@canterbury.ac.uk] as well as your normal CCCU password.
• Select Find Databases A-Z, click on E, then click on the link to Europe PMC.
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• Click on the Advanced Search link.

• To find relevant resources on the topic you are researching, look for the All Bibliographic Fields search box.

• Try typing the exact phrase "physical activity" (using double quotation marks) into the box.

• To broaden the search, type OR (in capital letters) and then add the keyword exercise. The search you've added to the box should now read "physical activity" OR exercise.

• To make the search more specific, use the "Choose one bibliographic field" drop-down menu to select the Title field. This means your listed results will contain only those items where one (or both) of these search terms appears in the title.

• Now click on the "+" icon to the right of the box to add another search term in a new box.

• Type the keyword obesity into the new search box and again select Title from the drop-down menu.

• Click on + to add another search box, type diabetes into this box, and then choose Title again.

• Before going any further, let's consider what you are searching for. You are asking for any research that contains either the phrase "physical activity" or the word exercise, and it must also contain the word obesity and the word diabetes, and you've limited your results to only those resources where your search terms appear in the title. This means that the results you see should be a lot more relevant than if you hadn't specified a field to search in.

• Now click on the blue Search button at the top. You should now see a list of about 50 results matching your search specifications.

• If you wish, you can still refine your search further using the options down the left - Free full text access, by Article type (e.g., Research articles and/or Review articles), or by Date. For now, let's just look at the results currently listed.

Viewing your search results
• Click on the second title (by Huang and others) for more details about this article. This should provide you with a page of basic information about the article. Fortunately, there is a "Free full text" link, so click on that.

• You should now be able to see the entire full-text article in HTML form. If you wish, you have the option of clicking on the link to Similar articles.

• To view the PDF version of the Huang article click on the DOI link (https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.0219) and then on the next screen click on Download PDF.

Saving the results of your search
• You can also use the "Get citation" link to export the article to your email, or, to a reference management tool such as RefWorks. 

Try searching Europe PMC by following the steps outlined below. This will help you to familiarise yourself with some of the most common functions:

1. 1. Try using the Advanced Search to search for anything containing the exact phrase "plant-microbe interactions" (using double quotation marks). Choose Title from the drop-down box and click on Search.
   2. How many results did you find? Think about how you can refine your results to ensure they are right for you.
   3. Now add another search box and enter the exact phrase "molecular plant pathology", again choosing the Title search field.
   4. No results? Go back to the previous screen and change the second drop-down menu back from Title to Choose one bibliographic field. (This time the second search term can appear anywhere in the article, not just in the title.) Now click on Search again.
   5. How many results are you left with?
   6. Now go back and re-run the search again, this time selecting the Choose one bibliographic field option from the first drop-down and Title from the second drop-down How many results does this produce? 
   7. Both result lists could have yielded some valid, relevant results.
   8. Choose one of the articles that has a "Free Full Text in Europe PMC" link and click on this link.
   9. Click on Get citation and then click on the Email link to email the reference to yourself.
   10. Think about other search terms you might use to research this topic, for example, "molecular biology", pathogens, or "plant diseases". Try running some alternative searches and compare results.

For accessibility information for this resource please go directly to https://europepmc.org/Accessibility.

Your Learning and Research Librarian will be able to help you make the best use of online resources. For detailed guidance, book a tutorial via the Learning Skills for Science, Engineering and Social Sciences link in the Learning Skills Hub.