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BIOS 1120 Principles of Biology

Finding Articles

👆👆 Be sure to click through the tabs at the top of this box!! 👆👆

PubMed

Link to access PubMed (opens in another tab)

PubMed is a database for finding scholarly articles about medicine. To use PubMed:

Put search terms in the search bar.

You may get way too many results if you use very broad search terms, like the name of a disease. Narrow your search by adding more search terms: For example, searching mononucleosis gives over 9000 results. Searching mononucleosis vaccine yields 300 results.

Filter by date.

Use the filters on the left of the results. You may want to limit your search to just the last 5 or 10 years, as medicine can change very quickly. If you have too few results, broaden your date filter.

Filter by article type.

For an overview of current research on a particular topic, choose review, systematic review, and/or meta-analysis. screen capture from pubmed with Meta-Analysis, Review, and Systematic Review selected; text: "Check these for an overview of many studies on a topic"

To find trials (experiments) related to your topic, select Clinical Trial and Randomized Controlled Trial

Screen capture from PubMed with Clinical Trial and Randomized Controlled trial selected; text:"check these to find individual experiments"

Use other articles

Look at the citations (also called references) in the materials you read to find potential article sources. If these are not clickable links (or if the links don't work) look up the citation on the library website.

Access the full text

In PubMed or other databases, look for links to "free text", "PDF download", or the brown W Article Linker button W Article Linker button to access the full text of an article.

Screen capture from PubMed showing the full text links on an article page

If these links don't work, or if you do not find links, look up the article in Library Search. For articles with common names, include one of the authors names in your search terms. When you find the right article, click the links in the "online" section of the page, under the yellow bar.

Screen capture of library website showing link to access article text

If you can't find the article in Library Search, it's still possible to get the full text. You will need to use Interlibrary Loan (ILL). See how to use ILL on our Borrow and Request page, or contact me and I'll walk you through it.

Your librarian

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Micaela Carignano
she/her/hers
Librarian:
1050 Waldo Library
(269)387-5971