Introduction to MEDLINE and to the bibliographic searches (II). PubMed users guide

This is the second and final article of a two-release course about bibliographic searches based in PubMed/MEDLINE. Presentation of the fundamentals for bibliographic searches, together with a presentation of PubMed/MEDLINE and their related resources were all carried out in the first article. We conceived this second part, as an introduction to the Pub- Med/MEDLINE functions. Under this view we hope to achieve a good cover of the following basic objectives and contents: 1. Show, in a practical way, how to develop basic search strategies. 2. Teach how to proceed to sort out the search results. 3. Show and explain how to amplify and modify the first results retrieved (?Limits?, ?Preview/Index?, the possibilities of ?Display? and ?History?). The use of PubMed services like the ?MeSH Database?, the ?Journals Database?, the ?Single Citation Matcher? and other are also included. Methodological filter (?Clinical Queries? and ?Systematic Reviews?) were presented in the former article of this course. 4. The after-search management of the citations is too under the scope of this article (saving, printing, the clipboard features, and the ?Cubby? tool). 5. Finally, some brief comments are offered on the practical aspects of reaching the original article (either printed or in its electronic versions), and the links from the PubMed site to full-text articles and other resources like contextual links to books.