This document provides an overview of searching PubMed: I. PubMed searches the MEDLINE database and provides access to over 21 million records and abstracts indexed with MeSH headings. II. MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) allows articles on the same topic to be found even if they use different words, through standardized subject terms. III. When searching PubMed, keywords are matched to MeSH terms to broaden results, and search filters can then focus results; searching for a term as a MeSH Major Topic limits to articles where it is a primary topic.

1. A Doherty Library Information Literacy Tutorial

2. Goals
Through viewing this presentation, you will understand:
I. What PubMed searches
II. What MeSH is
III. The basics of searching PubMed
IV. Getting full text of articles

3. I. What is PubMed?
 Searches MEDLINE, from U.S. National Library of
Medicine
 Dates back to 1940s
 Over 21 million bibliographic records and abstracts
 Organized by MeSH, Medical Subject Headings
 In addition to MEDLINE, PubMed searches ejournals,
ebooks, and more
 Access in Databases list at library.stthom.edu

4. Goals
Through viewing this presentation and trying examples,
you will understand:
I. What PubMed searches
II. What MeSH is
III. The basics of searching PubMed
IV. Getting full text of articles

5. II. What is MeSH?
 Medical Subject Headings
 Lets you find MEDLINE articles on the same topic that
might use different words to describe that topic.
 For example, the MeSH for heart attack is “myocardial
infarction.” Some articles on this topic use the phrase,
“heart attack,” but all articles on this topic in
MEDLINE have “myocardial infarction” as a MeSH
Subject Heading.

6. II. What is MeSH?
How do you use MeSH?
 PubMed tries to automatically match your keywords
with the best MeSH terms
 MeSH Major Topics are the most important topics
covered by a given article. In the article record, they
have an asterisk (*). You can search for any keyword as
a MeSH Major Topic using Advanced search.
 Only MEDLINE articles have MeSH terms (i.e. not all
of PubMed)

7. Goals
Through viewing this presentation and trying examples,
you will understand:
I. What PubMed searches
II. What MeSH is
III. The basics of searching PubMed
IV. Getting full text of articles

8. III. How do I search PubMed?
This is the PubMed basic search page. As
a first step, click on the “Advanced”
search.

9. Enter terms into these “Builder” boxes on
the Advanced search page. The box above
shows your search string.
PubMed tries to match the terms you
enter with MeSH subject terms. Then
PubMed will search for both your term
and the MeSH subject term.
In this example, PubMed will search for
cholesterol AND either “heart attack” OR
the MeSH term, “myocardial infarction.”

10. This “Search details” box shows what key
terms PubMed actually used in its search.
In the results page, use the “Show
additional filters” and “more…” buttons
to show the full range of filters to help
focus your results.

11. Searching for “heart attack” as a “MeSH
Major Topic” means that all your results
will have “myocardial infarction” listed as
a major topic of the article, i.e. as what
the article is primarily about. “Myocardial
infarction” will have an asterisk next to it
in these article records’ subject lists.
Searching for a MeSH Major Topic limits
your results to articles already indexed by
MEDLINE.

12. III. How do I search PubMed?
 In PubMed, you should keyword search just like other
databases, except:
 PubMed matches your terms with MeSH.
 Using quotation marks prevents MeSH matching (e.g.
“heart attack” will just search for “heart attack,” not
myocardial infarction.)

13. Goals
Through viewing this presentation and trying examples,
you will understand:
I. What PubMed searches
II. What MeSH is
III. The basics of searching PubMed
IV. Getting full text of articles

14. IV. How do I get full text of articles?
A. Some articles are freely available. Look for free full
text links in the article record.
B. Set up Google Scholar to show UST full-text links.
See campusguides.stthom.edu/googlescholar to
learn how. Then, copy and paste the full article title
from PubMed into Google Scholar and search. Click
“Get Full Text @ UST” to get the article.
C. If Google Scholar says there is “No Full Text
Available” for the article, request it through
Interlibrary Loan (link at library.stthom.edu).