PubMed is designed so that the novice user can simply type search terms in a box with automatic mapping to MeSH terms. Therefore, some ask: “Do I really need to know how articles are indexed?”
“Yes, you do!” experienced searchers generally agree. They know how often they are challenged to find the five most useful references from a database of over 17 million citations. They also intuitively recognize that a feature such as PubMed’s Related Articles is shaped not only by the occurrence of words in article titles and abstracts but by the use of MeSH headings and subheadings. (more…)