PAPB 501: Understanding and Implementing Clinical Research Library Guide

MeSH or Medial Subject Headings are one way that PubMed attaches a single word to a concept. Every year staff at the National Library of Medicine go through the literature and note new concepts. Searching with MeSH terms is a great way to find articles with the topic you need. 

Some examples of these terms include:

Not all information is created equal. Therefore every result will not meet your need. With all of the information out there you will be forced to evaluate the results of your search.

Don't believe me? Consider this statistic: in 2012 1,045,793 articles were published in PubMed. This means if you wanted to read all of the articles that were published last year you would have to read an average of 278 per day. 

To help you evaluate your results, first ask yourself this question:

• Does this resource help me answer my question?

If it does then you go to the next step in determining if it is a quality resource or not. 

To do that answer these questions:

• Who authored the source?
• When was it published?
• Is there any obvious bias in the article?
• Does the article have references?
• Why is this journal important?