Search by tag
Authors and people searching for literature often define terms differently. If you use the search field tag [tiab] only, you risk missing articles.
Compare the number of results of the following searches (click the links below):
The third example shows that over 46,000 articles contain the MeSH term ‘quality of life’ without the phrase ‘quality of life’ occurring verbatim in the title or abstract. Some of these 46,000 articles could be relevant to you, and you would miss out on them if you only use the field tab [tiab] in your search.
Search by phrase
When looking for a particular phrase in PubMed (with words in precisely the same order), use double quotation marks (“...”). Using quotation marks disables PubMed’s automatic term mapping function.
PubMed will also interpret the search term as a phrase when using a search field tag.
Look at the number of hits and the search details of these searches (click the links below):
Truncation
Truncation can cause unnecessary ‘noise’, for instance, a wrongly chosen root word or the inclusion of undesirable word variations. PubMed has a limit of 600 word variations and displays an error message when this number is exceeded (e.g. in the case of micro*). If this happens, adapt the root word or add the relevant word variations manually.
When using *, PubMed will also interpret the search term as a phrase (with words in the exact same order).
When looking for words occurring in the title, abstract or as an author keyword, make sure you include the various alternatives for the term in your searches. For example synonyms, singular and plural forms, British spelling, American spelling, etc.
If the subject has a MeSH term, consult the entry terms (See MeSH tab), as they often offer suggestions for synonyms that you can use in your [tiab] search.