9 PubMed Ninja Skills (Nov 30): Tips showing various options on PubMed

[Dolphin]

9 PubMed Ninja Skills
Posted November 30, 2015 by Hilda Bastian in Listicles
http://blogs.plos.org/absolutely-maybe/2015/11/30/9-pubmed-ninja-skills/

 

[jimells]

Thank you for the link. I look forward to reading the article. One reason I am a fan of Pubmed is that pages load fairly quickly even over a dialup internet connection. Apparently they actually have people who understand that not every one in the world has a fiber connection to their desktop.

I liked the photo of the old IBM mainframe. I worked on an IBM 360 Model 20 in 1974. It included the infamous (among computer operators, anyway) "Multi-Function Card Machine" with two feed hoppers, four or five output stackers, a punch unit, and a print unit.

The initials "MFCM" also stood for "M F Card Mangler" on an all-too-frequent occasions. I literally fed punch cards into the thing for eight hours a night most nights that I worked.

 

[Mary]

Thanks, @Dolphin! Whatever helps us on our quest .....

 

[Hip]

Thanks for the link to those PubMed search tips.

Most of the time when I want to search PubMed, though, I do it through Google, because it is easier on Google to find the info you are looking for, since Google provides those two text extract lines in each search result, which shows you the context.

To search PubMed through Google, just put:

site:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

into your search query.

For example, here is Google PubMed search on CFS and rituximab:

chronic fatigue syndrome rituximab site:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Hip]

In case it is of any use, I wrote a bookmarklet which you can put in your browser's favorites bar (bookmarks bar). A bookmarklet is similar to a regular bookmark, but does some funky extra things.

The bookmarklet I wrote allows you to select (highlight) any word or phrase on the webpage you are reading, and then when you click on this bookmarklet in your favorites bar, it will instantly perform a PubMed search (via Google) on that word or phrase.



The PubMed search bookmarklet is this:

javascript:(function(){if(document.activeElement.tagName!=="IFRAME"){query=document.activeElement.ownerDocument.getSelection();}else{query=document.getElementsByTagName("iframe")[0].contentWindow.document.getSelection();};query=query.toString().trim().replace(/\s/g,"+");window.open("https://www.google.com/search?q=site:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov+"+encodeURI(query));/**/})()

To install this bookmarklet, with your mouse, just select (highlight) all the text in the above blue box (make sure you select all of it), drag this text selection up to your browser's favorites bar, and then drop the text selection there. That will create a new bookmarklet in your favorites bar.

Then you can search PubMed in the way described above (ie, highlighting your search words, and then clicking the bookmarklet).



Also wrote a similar bookmarklet that searches the PR forum on your selected (highlighted) word or phrase:

javascript:(function(){if(document.activeElement.tagName!=="IFRAME"){query=document.activeElement.ownerDocument.getSelection();}else{query=document.getElementsByTagName("iframe")[0].contentWindow.document.getSelection();};query=query.toString().trim().replace(/\s/g,"+");if(query!=""){window.open("http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?search/1&q="+encodeURI(query));}else{window.open("http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?search");};/**/})()