PubMed (English): New: Step 2 - Basic Search

You want to know more about a certain subject. Use the "Best match" method and type what you are looking for.. Be specific, PubMed translates your basic search into a more extensive search. 

Example
Say you are looking for articles about the use of cranberries for prevention and treatment of a bladder infection. . Type your "own" search terms  (from the first phase of your research)  in in the search bar  WITHOUT using punctuation, quotation marks, capital letters, truncation, AND, OR, of NOT. You do not even have to know the scientific term for "bladder infection"!

In the search result list all search terms are in capitals also the terms added by Pubmed itself..  .

Via "Search details" you can see how Pubmed interpreted your search with 'Automatic term mapping',
Click "Advanced" below the search bar


Click "History and Search Details":



1. Search:
Here you see the complete search query Pubmed created for your search. 
​2. Translations:
Here you can see in detail which terms Pubmed has added  Bladder infection has been automatically translated and the medical term 'cystitis' has been added. And for cranberries the scientific term 'vaccinium macrocarpon', (singular and plural).

NOTE:
When checking 'Search details' you will see a limited number of synonyms :  PubMed can be inconsistent.
For example::
If you use "aged" as search term PubMed does NOT automatically add the search terms  "elderly", "geriatric" or "senior" :

If you use  "elderly" as a  search term Pubmed searches automatically for "aged", but NOT for "geriatric" or "senior'"

Your are looking for publications written by a certain author. Searching for an author kan be difficult when there are mutiple authors with the same name.or when an author publishes under different variations of his own name.

The most effective way is searching for the last name with initials, without capital letters or punctuation marks. This gives you a better result than searching for the full last name and first name. Not all PubMed records include full author names. 

Example
Looking for publications of which Francis Collins, managing director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) is the co-author, you search for:

In the search results your search term will be highlighted in bold text. A lot of articles appear to have been (co) written by 'FS Collins':

How can you check if this is Francis Collins?
And specifically: is this person the NIH managing director? 

- Open an article by clicking on the title
- Click "+Expand" next to  "Affiliations"

Type in the search bar on the homepage or in the search/result screen your citation elements like author, title word(s),  journal title, volume, year etc. 

Example
If you are looking for an article by an author named Ganna in the journal Science from 2019, search for:

Type the complete journal title, ISSN-number or the official abbreviation of the journal title in the search bar on the homepage or at the top of the search-result screen.

Example
Looking for articles published in the "Disability & Rehabilitation" journal , enter the full title:

OR the official abbreviation

 Searching by the full name


Search results by searching with the abbreviation 

Via "Journals" on the home page you can easily find the official abbreviation of a journal.