If you write health related articles or information products, you should use PubMed as a research tool. Here are some tips to avoid frustration and get the most out of PubMed’s database.
Get Started on PubMed
Go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/. Looks kinda bare and scary for a search engine, right? Academic types aren’t really into thrill and frill and fluff. Let’s walk around the home page to get comfortable.
At the top center is the search field. We’ll get to that in a second.
Below the header graphic are three columns. Read the documentation (left-hand column) if you have time to kill. Consider signing up for the RSS feed (click the orange button next to “New and Noteworthy” to sign up). The center and right columns are tools and resources; you won’t need those to perform simple searches. So, pretty much ignore hyperlinks on the home page.
The Heart of PubMed: Search
Go to the search field and type in your topic. There are 19 total databases listed in the drop down menu. Keep it simple by just searching the PubMed database—your results will be less cluttered.
As an example, I’ll type “nutrition and Vitamin A” to search. This returns 4,308 results. Immediately go to the upper right and click the Free Full Text hyperlink (1,112 results for me). Unless you have a ton of money lying around, you don’t want to pay up to $80 for an article. Stick with the free stuff.
Change display settings by clicking the drop down arrow (upper left). The default sorts by recently added. This setting is perfect for article writers because you want the latest information.
Locating the Article You Want
Now the fun begins. Scan the titles until you see one where you recognize all the words and it seems related to your focus. For my search, “How to reach a common estimate of high dietary micronutrient intakes for safe addition of vitamins and minerals to foods” sounds interesting.
Click on the hyperlinked title. The next page tells you the citation and abstract. Academic types write excellent abstracts. I’m still interested in the document so I click the free full text article button in the upper right. This is usually where you’ll find the link to free texts; sometimes there are several, so just click one.
Usually you’re brought to an html version of the whole article; sometimes you jump directly to the PDF. On the html page, in the upper right corner I have the option to download the PDF. This is handy if I’m researching a number of sources for the same topic: I download the PDFs, save them on my hard drive, and look them over later while writing. Probably 99 percent of the free full text results in PubMed are available as PDFs.
Wait a second before you click to the PDF, though. You’ll want to save the web address here for your citation, so readers can click through to check your facts. (Makes you look good.) For my article, the web address is http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2767238/?tool=pubmed. (Click on that to see where it leads you.)
A Word About Citations
I use modified APA style in online writing because of my academic background. To cite the example article, I’d write:
Andersen, N.L. And Tetens, I. (2009, October). How to reach a common estimate of high dietary micronutrient intakes for safe addition of vitamins and minerals to foods? Food and Nutrition Research, 53:10. Available from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2767238/.
I know that’s not strict APA style, but it works for online article writing.
Spend Some Time in Research
Repeat the process to get more articles to cite. Adding citations from real academic journals gives your health-related articles a definite expert feel, plus you get to back up your facts with research. Use the PubMed database often!
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