Database Guide - PubMed

PubMed is a free resource supporting the search and retrieval of biomedical and life sciences literature. It contains more than 36 million citations and abstracts of biomedical literature. Although it does not include full-text journal articles, links to the full text are often present when available from other sources, such as the publisher's website or PubMed Central (PMC).

Citations in PubMed primarily stem from the biomedicine and health fields, and related disciplines such as life sciences, behavioural sciences, chemical sciences, and bioengineering.

Pubmed includes the information from the entire MEDLINE databases. For information on the differences between the two, see our blog post Pubmed v Medline.

Pubmed is free to access online:

Pubmed home page

. However, there is also a link to it from LibrarySearch, listed alongside other databases.

• Go to LibrarySearch and 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 P, then click on the link to PubMed.
•  
•  

• Click on the link to the Advanced search.
• Enter your first search term into the box. For example, try typing in "gene expression" (using double quotation marks to search for the exact phrase).
• Click on ADD to add your search term to the Query box.
• Enter another search term into the search box. Try typing in "alternative splicing" and then use the drop-down menu to select Add with AND. Your second term will now also appear in the Query box.
• Now type in a third search term, such as phytochrome, and then click again on Add with AND.
• Click on Search.
• You should have found about 25 results that contain all of the above terms you added to the search.
• Once you've got some results, you can if you wish use the filters on the left-hand side to refine them, for example by year of publication or by article type.

Viewing your search results

Click on the article title for more information, including the abstract (summary) of the article, links to similar articles, and links to other, more recent articles that have cited this article in their bibliography.

The full text of articles can be accessed in a number of ways:

• For articles flagged as Free article, follow the full text links to download.
• For other articles, you can follow full text links, but other methods may work better. The first is to copy/paste the title of the article into LibrarySearch to see whether CCCU has access. The other is to install the Libkey Nomad browser extension, which is compatible with Pubmed - this will inform you of which articles are available through CCCU and enable you to link through to them.

Saving the results of your search

From your results list you can tick the boxes for the articles you wish to keep a note of and then Email them to yourself.

See the video at the end of this guide for more on searching Pubmed, and also this link to the PubMed User Guide: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/help/

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

1. 1. Using the Advanced search, enter the keyword phototropism and ADD this to the Query box.
   2. Now type in the keyword auxin and click on Add with AND. 
   3. Click on search.
   4. How many results does this produce?
   5. Tick the boxes for Free full text and Full text.
   6. How many results now remain?
   7. See if you can download one of the articles. (Make sure you are currently logged-in to LibrarySearch.)
   8. See if you can email the details of this article to yourself.
   9. Think about other search terms you might use to research this topic, for example, the phrase "effect of light on plant growth" for phototropism, or, phytohormone, or the phrase "growth regulator" for auxin). You can combine alternative keywords or phrases using ADD with OR. Try out some alternative searches and compare results.

Pubmed does not provide specific accessibility features, though efforts are made to ensure the information on the site is accessible. Accessibility information for this resource can be found on the National Library of Medicine Accessibility page.

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 Hub.