A Going! A Going!!! Color etching. Richard Newton, 1813. Courtesy of The National Library of Medicine.

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Google Scholar could help you find that elusive source.

The National Library of Medicine's PubMed search site is hands down your best means of locating authoritative medical literature to support your case. Search results are generally articles from prestigious, mostly peer-reviewed medical journals that have passed rigorous standards for inclusion in the MEDLINE database.

Google Scholar, on the other hand, doesn't always lead one to the most reliable sources, but it can locate literature that PubMed might miss for this important reason: PubMed looks for your search terms only in the abstract of the article indexed in the MEDLINE database, while Google Scholar searches the ENTIRE ARTICLE for your terms. Hence when you have a difficult search, and PubMed hasn't been productive, Google Scholar just might find that on-point article for you.

A few tips for searching Google Scholar:  

(1) Google Scholar will search for phrases if you enclose them in quotation marks, for example, "gastroesophageal reflux disease".

(2) Once you have located a relevant article, the "Cited by" and "Related articles" links under each citation can lead you to other good sources.

(3) Google Scholar provides links to many full-text sources at the right of the citations.

(4) By default, Google Scholar sorts search results by their relevance. Since a search frequently produces thousands of citations, it is generally not fruitful to wade through more than a few pages of these.

Again it should be emphasized that although Google Scholar can produce some unreliable results, it does have the power to locate difficult-to-find supportive literature due to its full-text searching feature.

Indeed,  Google Scholar could possibly save your day!


MedMatters
Expert Medical Literature Research for Attorneys
358 Atkins Avenue
Lancaster, PA 17603-4938
(717) 397-6701
E-mail: patmill@medmatters.net

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This Tips for Attorneys page was last updated with links verified by MedMatters on September 15, 2021.

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