Medline
From ResearchWiki
MEDLINE is an online database that contains abstracts and some full text links to over 4 million articles on biomedical literature. The database contains a broad range of medical topics relating to research, clinical practice, administration, policy issues, and health care services. Medline is not a “full-text” database, but some of the articles may be available through other electronic databases, such as ScienceDirect, Academic Onefile or J-Stor, and there may be a link provided to one of these or other databases on some article citations in Medline search results. Medline may be accessed from anywhere you have Internet access through the LNDL homepage.
You must have a current library barcode to access this database from off campus. Your barcode is on your ID. (It’s the number that begins with 22425. . . .) To begin a search in Medline from the LNDL homepage, select Databases by Title on the bar on the top left of the page and then select ‘M’ from the alphabet at the top of the page. Select Medline from the menu. This takes you to the CSA/Illumina advanced search page for Medline.
An important general principle to remember as you begin your search is that you should search by only a few terms at first – perhaps 2-3 words. A common mistake beginning searchers make is to put in 4, 5 or even 6 search terms, which frequently narrows the results down to zero. After you perform one simple search and get many results, try adding one more pertinent word in a subsequent search and so on until you get the ideal number of results. This will give you a better idea of the quantity of literature in a given area.
The next most important principle to note is the usefulness of the mark list feature; In the search results you turn up, notice the boxes to the left of each number. These boxes can be checked by clicking on them, thereby creating a list of saved citations. This feature allows you to perform multiple searches without losing desired results. To access your marked list, click the “Marked Records” list to the right of the “search tools” tab (note: if you have only marked results on one page, you will have to click “update marked list” above the results).
Review articles are useful when beginning a literature search because they condense information from many articles into one easily read article. To look for review articles, go back to Advanced Search. Pull down the first menu (on right of screen) using down arrow, and select Publication Type (PT=). Type review in the search box. This will generally limit the search to journal articles that are review articles. Be aware that review articles constitute secondary research - they will never fit the criteria for “primary” research. Primary research articles are articles that relate, for the first time, the results of a particular study undertaken by a particular researcher or team. Whether an article is a “primary” or “secondary” source can generally be ascertained quickly by a cursory reading of the abstract or the article itself.
The DE or Descriptor area gives you your subject terms. You will see them listed to the right of search results as links. You can search by a descriptor subject by clicking on one of these terms. Descriptors also appear as clickable boxes below the full record of individual results; clicking one or more of these boxes will give you the results that have had the combination of descriptors you chose assigned to them.
