PubMed is a database containing scholarly articles in most of the medical and allied health-related fields such as biology, dentistry, nursing, physical therapy, psychology, and more. This database offers a lot of academic literature and provides multiple options for searching the database. The following tutorial will give step-by-step instruction on how to find those articles within the database that are full-text (entire article.) It is important to note that not every record within PubMed will lead to the entire article.
Step 1: Click on "Limits." You need to select some options (limits).
Step 2: We are going to use stem cells for this example. We want PubMed to find any full-text article that contains the words stem and cells. Type the topic within the white search box.
This is an international database that contains all kinds of scholarly research articles. We are going to choose "Humans" and we are going to choose "English" as the language for the articles that we want to view.
The "Type of Article" is up to you to choose. Usually, clinical trials will produce original scholarly research "studies." Meta-Analysis and Reviews can produce research "studies" but often Meta-Analysis and Reviews produce "reviews" of studies that are going on or have taken place in the past. They are more like scholarly reports. They ARE scholarly articles, but they may not be original research studies. If you click within the editorial box then PubMed will provide those articles that are editorials (commentaries).
Step 3: Continue to scroll down the screen in order to make some more choices.
You NEED to select the "Links to free full text" option in order to retrieve the entire article. You need to select the middle option. The "Links to full text" option will produce articles with links to publishers who require you to PAY for the article.
You need to select "Links to free full text."
Once you have selected all your options, you can click on the "Search" button so that PubMed searches for your FREE full-text articles.
Step 4: Depending on your subject, you might see a LONG list of citations (title of article, author, publication, date). You will need to scroll down the list of citations to choose a title that looks good to you. Click on the title (link) of the article.
Step 5: After clicking on the title, you will see the record on the screen. Often, you see the abstract (summary of the article) that takes up most of the screen. The abstract can help you determine the content of the article as well as if the article is an original research study like seen in this example, or is a standard article, review, or editorial.
On the far upper right of the screen, you will see one OR two icons (buttons) that should mention something about "full-text."
One of the icons will present the FREE full-text of the article. You may need to click on both icons to see which one will produce the FREE full-text.
Step 6: You should see the full-text of the article appear on the screen. Usually, there is an option to select the PDF version of the article. The PDF will produce the actual scanned image of the article with charts, graphs, and pictures.
