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HPM 2037: Professional and Academic Writing in Public Health

All materials in this LibGuide are related to the Spring 2015 HPM 2037 class, and will assist you in the writing of your master's essay in the future.

PubMed Pre-class activities

HSLS PubMed Handouts and Resources

At HSLS, we have a special link we use to access PubMed to ensure that you will be able to retrieve the full text of articles without creating an account at PubMed and logging in. However, you may find it useful to create an account. Instructions on doing so are found below.

We offer several ways, described here, to get assistance when searching PubMed for research articles. You can also take advantage of the handouts and videos we have developed. 

  • Create and Customize a My NCBI account
  • Painless PubMed 3-part video series from HSLS
    • Part 1: Introduction & Getting Started with PubMed (Panopto video; 10m 32s) 
      • By the end of this video, you should be able to:
        • Describe what is in PubMed
        • Access PubMed and the full text of articles from the HSLS home page
        • Create a My NCBI account
        • Navigate the PubMed screen 
    • Part 2: Develop your search strategy (video; 28m 42s) 
      • Download the PI/ECO+ Search Planning Form (MS Word) to help develop your search strategy
      • By the end of this video, you should be able to:
        • Articulate your research question
        • Create a basic search using Boolean operators
        • Describe what MeSH terms are
        • Broaden/Narrow a search
    • Part 3: Other PubMed features (video; 15m 39s) 
      • By the end of this video, you should be able to:
        • Use the Limits options
        • Search within a range of years 
        • Find similar articles

National Library of Medicine PubMed Training Resources

  • How PubMed Works 
    • The free class is offered via Moodle.
    • How PubMed Works On Demand is made up of 4 independent modules.
    • The individual modules are:
    • How PubMed Works: Introduction
    • How PubMed Works: Selection
    • How PubMed Works: MeSH (Medical Subject Headings)
    • How PubMed Works: ATM (Automatic Term Mapping)
  • Additional resources:

Citation management software

There are several options when selecting citation management software. Two commonly used programs, EndNote and SciWheel (formerly f1000) are licensed by the University of Pittsburgh. Two other programs, Mendeley and Zotero are freely available.

HSLS LibGuide: Citation Managers

  • This HSLS LibGuide describes and compares the various citation managers available to you.
  • Download EndNote from MyPitt Software Download 
    • Be sure you download the most current EndNote version for your PC or Mac. You must be a member of the University of Pittsburgh community with a valid MyPitt login to download EndNote.
  • We also offer in-class presentations as well as 1-hour workshops on citation manager software.

HSLS List of Class Offerings