Searching for relevant scientific articles in known to be a common task (more or less difficult depending on the searching knowledge and the tools used) for life sciences professionals. In fact, there are several web-based services, journals and/or paying (password-restricted) platforms to search from. It is often difficult to know the good search strategy (which platform, what keywords, what filters, etc) in the first place. You may find what you are looking for eventually, but you are desperate to fasten this process and make it easier and less resource-consuming. Even if most of us can ask a librarian (you will find valuable information and resources with these 10+1 medical librarians you should read) or have a Pubmed class, life science professionals need to improve their searches. Improving searches can be done through several ways: reading use cases, tips, using novoseek and, last but not least, knowing what kind of publication type you are looking for. Indeed, filtering a search in Pubmed database by one or several publication types will help you limit a large amount of search results and find what you need to read faster.

This list aims to help the life science professionals determine what the publication types correspond to and what they will allow them to find within the biomedical literature. We will put emphasis on the main and most common publication types you can find while searching for scientific articles in the biomedical literature. Each Publication Type is illustrated with an example on novoseek.

On top of that, we would like to present interesting facts as dealing with huge databases allow us to play around with figures and interpret them. For example, from the nearly 19 million articles available in Medline to date, nearly 97% are categorized as Journal Articles and more than 8% account for english abstracts. However, an article can be categorized in several publication types at the same time. The following image shows how the literature is categorized in publication types.

note:the publication types accounting for less of 2% are not shown in this graph and are gathered in the category “rest of publication types”.

• Clinical Trial


A Clinical Trial is a work that is the report of a pre-planned clinical study of the safety, efficacy, or optimum dosage schedule of one or more diagnostic, therapeutic, or prophylactic drugs, devices, or techniques in humans selected according to predetermined criteria of eligibility and observed for predefined evidence of favorable and unfavorable effects.
Example: BRCA1 – Clinical Trial

• Comparative Study


A comparative study is a study in which a participant is randomly assigned to one of two or more different treatment groups for purposes of comparing the effects of the treatments.
Example: BRCA1 – Comparative Study

• Comment


A Comment is a work consisting of a critical or explanatory note written to discuss, support, or dispute an article or other presentation previously published. It may take the form of an article, letter, editorial, etc. It appears in publications under a variety of names: comment, commentary, editorial comment, viewpoint, etc.
Example: BRCA1 AND BRCA2 mutation – Comment

• Controlled Clinical Trial


A Controlled Clinical Trial is a work consisting of a clinical trial involving one or more test treatments, at least one control treatment, specified outcome measures for evaluating the studied intervention, and a bias-free method for assigning patients to the test treatment. The treatment may be drugs, devices, or procedures studied for diagnostic, therapeutic, or prophylactic effectiveness.
Example: Sinusitis – Controlled Clinical Trial

• Consensus Development Conference


A Consensus Development Conference is a work that consists of summary statements representing the majority and current agreement of physicians, scientists, and other professionals meeting to reach a consensus on a selected subject.
Example: Asthma – Consensus Development Conference

• English Abstract


An English Abstract refers to publications that have been written in a language different from English and which abstracts and title have been translated to English for indexing reasons in NKM. When browsing results, you can notice the English Abstracts directly thanks to the bracket in the title.
Example: Asthma – English Abstract

• Evaluation Studies


An Evaluation Studies is a work consisting of studies determining the effectiveness or utility of processes, personnel, and equipment.
Example: Asthma – Evaluation Studies

• Guideline


A Guideline is a work consisting of a set of statements, directions, or principles presenting current or future rules or policy. Guidelines may be developed by government agencies at any level, institutions, organizations such as professional societies or governing boards, or by the convening of expert panels.
Example: Asthma – Guideline

• Journal Article


Journal Articles are the predominant publication type for articles and other items indexed for NLM (National Library of Medicine) databases.
Example: BRCA1 – Journal Articles

• Meta-Analysis


Meta-Analysis are works consisting of studies using a quantitative method of combining the results of independent studies (usually drawn from the published literature) and synthesizing summaries and conclusions which may be used to evaluate therapeutic effectiveness, plan new studies, etc. It is often an overview of clinical trials.
Example: Asthma – Meta Analysis

• Multicenter Study


A Multicenter Study is a work consisting of a controlled study executed by several cooperating institutions.
Example: Asthma – Multicenter Study

• Practice Guideline


A Practice Guideline is a work consisting of a set of directions or principles to assist the health care practitioner with patient care decisions about appropriate diagnostic, therapeutic, or other clinical procedures for specific clinical circumstances. Practice guidelines may be developed by government agencies at any level, institutions, organizations such as professional societies or governing boards, or by the convening of expert panels.
Example: Asthma – Practice Guideline

• Randomized Controlled Trial


A Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) is a work consisting of a clinical trial that involves at least one test treatment and one control treatment, concurrent enrollment and follow-up of the test- and control-treated groups, and in which the treatments to be administered are selected by a random process, such as the use of a random-numbers table.
Example: Asthma – Randomized Controlled Trial

For further information and benefits on RCT, I strongly recommend you to read the post “the best study for dummies” by Jacqueline Limpens.

• Research Support, NIH, Extramural


Research Support, NIH, Extramural, refers to publications of research resulting from extramural research funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Example: Asthma – Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

• Review


A Review is an article or book published after examination of published material on a subject. It may be comprehensive to various degrees and the time range of material scrutinized may be broad or narrow, but the reviews most often desired are reviews of the current literature.
Example: Asthma – Review

• Validation Studies


A Validation Study is a work consisting of research using processes by which the reliability and relevance of a procedure for a specific purpose are established.
Example: Asthma – Validation Studies

Regarding novoseek functionalities, it helps you filter by Publication Type easily as we explain in this TIP blogspot and you can refer to the following images to see where to filter by Publication Type when you are on the results page and where to identify the Publication Type when you are reading a publication on novoseek.

Resources: PubTypes, research, novoseek and insights from José Cristobal Buñuel .

Boolean logic is a system for logical operations, used in many systems. In novoseek, Boolean operators can be used to combine different search terms. Why is this interesting for novoseek users? The use of Boolean operators will help save time and get better results in the first place. There are 3 Boolean logics you can use in novoseek: AND, OR and NOT. Obviously, you can combine one or several of them, as we will show you in the following examples.

• Boolean AND

Boolean AND is used in novoseek to spot publications where both search terms are mentionned.

Cancer: 1,168,270 results
Breast: 259,863 results
Cancer AND Breast: 166,624 results (view online)
• Boolean OR

Boolean OR is used in novoseek to spot publications where at least one of the search term is mentionned.

Cancer: 1,168,270 results
Breast: 259,863 results
Cancer OR Breast: 1,261,509 results (view online)
• Boolean NOT

Boolean NOT is used in novoseek to spot publications where the first search term is mentionned and the one following NOT is excluded.

Cancer: 1,168,270 results
Breast: 259,863 results
Cancer NOT Breast: 1,001,646 results (view online)
• Combination of Boolean operators

The combination of several Boolean operators allows to perform complex searches at once. It is recommended to advanced users willing to save time and read relevant results quickly.

Cancer: 1,168,270 results
Breast: 259,863 results
Trastuzumab: 2,837 results
Cancer AND Breast AND Trastuzumab: 2,184 results (view online)
Cancer AND Breats NOT Trastuzumab: 164,440 results (view online)
Cancer OR breast OR Trastuzumab: 1,261,631 results (view online)
Trastuzumab NOT Cancer NOT Breast: 122 results (view online)

This user case is inspired by a search tutorial for Pubmed (see page 61) brought to our knowledge by María, Medical Librarian from Torrevieja Hospital (Spain). We found it interesting to show how novoseek provides results as satisfactory as Pubmed in a simple and quick way.

1. We first search for « tamiflu » in novoseek.There are 840 results in pubmed and 144 in free full text to date.
   
2. Looking in the search details we notice that our search has been mapped to pharmacological substance « tamiflu ».
   Clicking on the the term tamiflu pops up a window with complementary information. This is handy to know the synonyms (alternative names) to Tamiflu : Oseltamivir phosphate , GS 4104 are some of them.

3. We need to look for influenza disease to keep building our search.Obviously, it should appear in the first relevant related concepts to the previous search. Indeed, it is the first related disease to the search Tamiflu. Clicking on it will add it directly to the current search (alternatively you can click on the « i » icon and click on « add filter » as shown on image). The search is now refined and we have gone from 840 results to 639 results in Pubmed.
   
   
   In this case, we are looking for Meta-Analysis publications. In science, “meta-analysis does more than just combine the effect sizes of a set of studies. It can test if the studies’ outcomes show more variation than the variation that is expected because of sampling different research participants” as explained in the Wikipedia. This should help us find publications showing the efficiency of Tamiflu to diminish the percentage of secondary complications.
4. We now need to select the publication type (or type or article).We click on the « bibliographics tab » and where publication type is, we click on the « more » button. Where « Meta Analysis » appears, we click on that term which is directly added to the current search. We now have gone from 639 results to 9 results in Pubmed.
   
   
5. The results are very satisfactory as they contain the same publications as in Pubmed. Should we need to look specifically for publication mentioning children, look for the filter “Homo Sapiens” in the related concepts tab on the left and add it to your search. We now have 5 results in Pubmed.
   • Check more User cases.
   • Check more Tips.


We can compare now these results to Pubmed’s and we notice that we have the 3 publications found in Pubmed in novoseek results. The advantage with novoseek is that we have performed a complex search in a simple way and in no time.

We are glad to announce the launch of the biomedical gadgets working thanks to the novoseek’s API. The use of the biomedical gadgets is open to everyone and free. You can get your API Key today and start using the gadgets to extract relevant biomedical information from novoseek and to create biomedical gadgets. In order to create biomedical gadgets, you just have to follow a few steps to publish it on your website or blog.

Gadgets will allow you to publish biomedical information where you want. Gadgets can be published on your blog, website…(where scripts are accepted) and will alllow you to easily extract information from the literature according to your query. With the gadgets you will:

• Enrich your content
• Integrate valuable data
• Display more information
• And no need to know about programming.

There are at this time 2 types of gadgets:

• The Key Concept Gadget allowing you to display the information related to any biomedical concept.
• The Document Gadget allowing you to display the most recent documents related to your search.

Through an intuitive interface, you will create handy gadgets in a few seconds and will be able to publish a gadget where you need it and modifying it as many time as you want. You are also able to create multiple different gadgets.

Let’s have a look at the possibilities brought by the gadgets with a few examples:

• Insert a Document gadget on your Diabetes blog sidebar to keep readers updated on the most recent scientific publications.

Example: 10 latest publications for Diabetes.

• Insert a gadget to show the most relevant disease, pharmacological substances, genes & proteins, chemical substances, organisms, organs & body parts, tissues, biological functions, procedures-techniques, journals, authors -a combination of them or all of them- related to your query.

Example: Tissues, Biological functions and Procedures/techniques related to “chronic granulomatous disease”

• Match the gadget design to your blog’s.

The examples shown previously have a style by default but you can easily change the design colors, width and height during the creation of biomedical gadgets.

Last but not least, we recommend you to watch the tutorial video about the gadgets to see how easy it works.

We’d love to hear from you and know how you are using the gadgets, so feel free to contact us or leave a comment below.

Filter the results of a biomedical search by publication type is something users are really looking forward to finding on novoseek (as this request on uservoice shows, for example).

This inaugural post for tips pretends to help you improve searches in novoseek and especifically describes how to select the publication(s) type(s) you need to read for your search, step by step.

1. Perform a search in novoseek

In this example, we have searched weight loss and we have the following: 72,877 results.


2. Click on the Bibliographics tab at the top of the left sidebar

Clicking on the Bibliographics tab displays the relevant Authors, Journals and Publication Type to your search. Currently, there are 72,877 results for this search.


3. Look for Publication Type at the bottom of list

When you are there, we recommend to click on the more button to display the whole listing of publication types. In that case, we need to read the Review-related articles to weight loss. It’s the 6th concept in the Publication Type’s.


4. Click on the Publication Type you need to read for your search

Clicking on Review will automatically add it to your current search and display results for weight loss in the intended publication type. Here, we went from 72,877 results for weight loss search to 8,217 for weight loss review articles.


5. Modify your search to your needs

You can modify your search quickly and efficiently. If you want to go back to the results for weight loss, just click on remove next to “review”, click on the Bibliographics tab again and select the intended Publication Type.

We are aware that being able to filter by Publication Type is a key feature. We are working on making it easier for you to find it and perform quicker and more efficient searches. We are open to your suggestions in terms of tips needed in order to help you improve your searches so feel free to comment below.