INFORM Workshop Training Materials
Finding References to Journal Articles
Finding References to Journal Articles
Journal articles don’t provide the overview that books do, but they are excellent
sources for detailed information about research results and their implications for
clinical practice. Furthermore, it may take years for a book to move from manuscript
to finished product, whereas articles are published much more quickly and contain
‘fresher’ information.
About article references
Before you can read and learn from journal articles, you must obtain bibliographic
information about them in the form of references. A reference for a journal article
includes the name of the author(s), the date, the title of the article, the name of the
journal, the volume and issue of the journal, and the page numbers. In other words,
they look something like this:
Massale J, Yin L, Garcia M, Smith B. Effect of programme reorganization on
patient satisfaction with health service: a comparative study in Tanzania, China, and
Chile. International Journal of Public Health 54(3):12-18.
Alternative ways to find references
There are several ways in which you can identify articles relevant to your interests
and obtain the references to those articles.
 You can start with a very recent publication (either a book or an article) and
then use snowballing to identify earlier articles.
 You can find a bibliography or review article about the topic of interest and
locate the articles listed in that bibliography or review article.
 You can do searches in bibliographic databases (sometimes called indexes)
that provide references to articles published in journals.
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INFORM Workshop Training Materials
Finding References to Journal Articles
All three approaches are worth trying, but you will probably have the best results if
you do searches in bibliographic databases. A major advantage of looking in
databases is that you often can find not only the bibliographic information, but also
an abstract (summary) of the paper. In many cases, the abstract will give you
enough information so that you can judge whether it is worth you time to hunt down
the article in print or electronic form.
If you search for articles in a database that is on-line, you normally get the abstract
and often in best cases the full text of the article, which you can read on your
computer screen or print out. Another unit goes into details about finding full text
articles.
About bibliographic databases in general
In the library world, electronic collections of bibliographic information regarding
journal articles are usually called databases, although that term in fact covers many
other kinds of data collections. The term indexes is also encountered. For example,
one of the major bibliographic databases covering the social sciences is called the
Social Sciences Citation Index.
The key to searching effectively for journal articles is to remember that most
bibliographic databases do not cover all topics. There are tens of thousands of
databases, most of them focused of a specific topic. You will probably only have to
search in a couple.
For medical journal articles, the best source is Medline. For articles about the social
science aspects of medicine, Social Sciences Citation Index is the top choice. The
database ERIC covers articles about pedagogy and related fields. CINAHL is the
major database for nursing and related health professions. There are also databases
such as African Studies which are multidisciplinary in nature.
In most cases, bibliographic databases only give references for articles published in
certain pre-selected journals. In some cases, only a few hundred journals are
covered, in other cases it may be many thousands. Medline indexes about 4600
journals.
Remember!
If a database has a set journal list,
you will not find references in it to articles in other journals.
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INFORM Workshop Training Materials
Finding References to Journal Articles
Be aware, however, that some databases are organized quite differently. They
include bibliographic information about relevant publications regardless of the
source. References may be given to articles from any journal—even to books and
grey literature!
Physically accessing databases
Note that some databases are available only as CD-ROMS. These CD-ROMs are
purchased by libraries. To use them, you must physically go to the library and sit at
a computer that has a CD reader.
Today, an increasing number of databases are on-line, but they vary in how easy they
are to reach and use. Some are available to the public free-of-charge. Examples are
the article search at Agricola (agricola.nal.usda.gov/), which is strong on nutrition,
and ERIC (www.eric.ed.gov/), which covers education and pedagogy. Within
medicine, the major example is Medline. Anyone can do searches in Medline by
going to the search system PubMed at the National Library of Medicine at
www.pubmed.org. PubMed is open to everyone and can be used free of charge.
If you get locked out….
There have been cases in which commercial Internet providers have blocked the
National Library of Medicine site and demanded payment from doctors for access to
Medline/PubMed.
If this happens to you, you may be able to gain access by taking an indirect route.
Do this by going on-line to any major university in the United States or Europe, find
the library, find the databases, and click on the link to Medline/PubMed.
Some on-line databases can only be used by members of academic communities,
such as universities or research institutes, which have paid for a subscription. Access
is restricted in various ways.
 At some universities, the Internet Protocol (IP) numbers of the university’s
computers are registered with the provider. This means that access can only
be gained via one of those computers.
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INFORM Workshop Training Materials
Finding References to Journal Articles
 At other institutions, each user is assigned a user name and password to type in
when entering the database.
 At yet others, access is controlled by the bar code on the user’s library card,
which is read using a scanner hooked up to any computer.
Don’t waste your time trying to ‘get around’ these restrictions. Use the databases
that are available to you where you are.
Basic steps for using bibliographic databases
The following paragraphs outline a general strategy for searching bibliographic
databases. As you will see, the idea is to start with a rough, broad search in a general
bibliographic database, then do searches in more specific ones, and finally to build
up your list through various special functions such as links to related articles.
In doing your searches, keep in mind the general instructions for searching in
electronic sources (try different search strings, use truncation and Boolean logic,
search in different fields, etc.). See relevant units for details. Also, it is a good idea
to keep notes about what searches you’ve done, so that you don’t repeat yourself.
 First, find out what is available locally
You can find out if any subscription-based databases are available to you and how
you can access them by contacting the library serving your university, institute, or
hospital. If you are working in an institution that has a medical informatics
department, you may want to check there also. If you are near other libraries, be sure
and check them also.
 Identify the major bibliographic database(s) for your field
For most medical fields, the major resource will be Medline. It has built-in
intelligence and provides abstracts and related article references. It is reachable
through many addresses, including www.nlm.nih.gov and www.pubmed.org.
If you go to Pubmed via the www.nlm.nih.gov address, be sure and look for
Medline/PubMed, not Medline Plus.
Medline Plus is a good general source of information about medical topics, but it
is not a searchable bibliographic database like Medline/PubMed.
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INFORM Workshop Training Materials
Finding References to Journal Articles
 At least check out the other available bibliographic databases
If you do have access to other bibliographic databases, check them out. No database
covers everything. Medline does not index articles from every medical journal.
Therefore, if your institution has any other databases available, you should at least
take a quick look at them and see what they have to offer.
 Snowball both back and forward
The citation indexes (Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index) are
now being made available to some universities in lower-income countries, including
Tanzania, through INASP/PERI. Ask your librarians about them! They take some
time to learn to use, are well worth it!
One feature is that you can get a list of the references for each indexed article. In
other words, without actually acquiring a paper copy of the article, you can see what
articles and books the authors referred to. This makes it possible for you to build up
your own list of relevant materials.
Citation indexes also allow you to snowball in a forward direction! First you identify
a classic book or article in your specific field and then ask the index to identify
recent articles that have cited (referred to) that classic work.
 Check the ‘related articles’
Many bibliographic databases, including Medline/PubMed, provide lists of ‘related’
articles for each hit. So when you find a paper that is highly relevant, you can
sometimes save time by clicking on ‘related articles’. The relationship may not be
obvious in all cases, since the list of related articles is automatically generated
through a comparison of the reference lists at the end of the articles.
When you start looking at related articles, it is easy to get lost. To prevent confusion,
it may be best to go through your first set of hits before you move to the related
articles of a specific reference. Keep notes so that you don’t repeat yourself.
Publisher and provider databases
Another way to find journal articles about a specific topic is to go on-line to the site
of publishers producing journals in that area and of companies that provide on-line
access to them. The publishers have set up their own searchable databases covering
the articles in their own journals. Likewise, the providers have on-line search
systems for the journals for which they handle subscriptions or serve as on-line hosts.
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INFORM Workshop Training Materials
Finding References to Journal Articles
Searching these publisher and provider databases is usually less efficient than
searching in a topical database covering a whole field, such as Medline. However,
doing an on-line search in publisher/provider databases is much more efficient than
going through the tables of contents of relevant journals, one by one. Thus the best
search strategy may be one that includes searches both in topical bibliographic
databases and in publishers’ databases
If you have access to journals at specific publishers through a programme such as
INASP/PERI, then you should certainly spend some of your search time at those
publishers’ sites.
Examples of key publisher sites are Blackwell Synergy at www.blackwellsynergy.com, SpringerLink at www.springerlink.com, Elseviers’ Science Direct
(www.sciencedirect.com), and BioMed Central (www.biomedcentral.com). The
features of the search systems at publisher sites vary but in some cases are very
sophisticated. For example, you may have the option of limiting your search to
journals for which you have full access rights and can read the full text.
And now a wonderful new tool…..Google Scholar!
The company Google, which provides a search engine and search directory for the
World Wide Web, has released a new feature called Google Scholar. Using this tool,
you can search simultaneously through many of the databases and other scholarly
resources that are open to the public free-of-charge, including Medline and publisher
databases. The system does not get into the databases that require a subscription,
such as Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index.
Google Scholar is probably not the best choice when you want to look just for
articles that should be in Medline, since Scholar doesn’t have as many options for
limiting the search as Medline/PubMed has, nor the possibility of doing clinical
queries. However, if you are searching in an area that may be covered by other
databases, you should definitely try it out. See also the unit Accessing Full-Text
Articles to learn how to add a simple free full-text filter to a Google Scholar search!
To reach Google Scholar, go to scholar.google.com/. Clicking on the advanced
search option is recommended!
Martha J Garrett
INFORM
Faculty of Medicine, Uppsala University
Uppsala, Sweden
June 2005
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