Nursing

Automatic Term Mapping, Search History, and Search Details

Using PubMed Central is similar to using PubMed (see above), with a few exceptions. Automatic Term Mapping functions much the same way, but unlike PubMed, your search history is displayed in the advanced search section, but search details are displayed on the right-hand side of the results page.

By PMCID

Searching by PMID (PubMed ID) does not work in PubMed Central. Instead, articles are assigned a PMCID, or PubMed Central ID. You can search multiple PMCIDs at one time by separating them with a space. You can use only the numerical values or include the preceding letters PMC (ex. 11917214 OR PMC11917214). PMC will automatically apply the tag [uid] to these searches.

By Citation

Because PMC accepts author manuscripts that may differ from the published article in bibliographic information, it is advisable to locate articles in PMC using the PMCID rather than citation information.

By Author

Searching for an author by Lastname, First Initial. works in PMC too, but PMC does not have computed author sort. If you find an article in PMC and click on the author's name it will link you out to a search in PubMed listed in computed author sort order.

More Information

PubMed Central is meant to be a full-text database, so the majority of records there will include full text. There will typically be options to view the article in browser or to download a PDF.

However, some records included in PubMed are "embargoed," meaning that they are not freely available for a designated period of time due to copyright limitations.