Link to Ferris Homepage
Ferris Library for Information, Technology and Education
Contact
 
  Alison (Ali) Konieczny
  Email
  Phone: 231-591-3696
  Office: FLITE 315
 

English 321 for Pharmacy Students


First things first: Read the EBM Guidebook from the University of California, Irvine-
a brief (17 page book) that helps you to understand the basics of PICO and CAMeL.


Helpful Sites for Finding Paper Topics

  • FDA Approved Drugs by Year: Consider looking at a drug approved in recent years, and possibly consider researching its effectiveness for an off-label use
  • Physician's First Watch Archives: These stories are brought to you by the producers of the New England Journal of Medicine
  • Reuters Health Headlines: You will default to today's headlines, but can pull down on the date menu to see previous headlines
  • FDA MedWatch Archives: Learn about drug safety alerts that may pique your interest
  • Cochrane Library: In this database, you can click in the blue Browse bar on By Review Group, and scroll down the screen to see the various protocols and reviews. A Withdrawn review may have a good topic to consider because it may have been withdrawn because of lack of updates, or possibly a protocol change.


    • Building a Search Strategy

    In order to effectively retrieve information, it's very important to have a well-designed search. Please see the Building a Search Strategy Handout



    Determining if there is a Recent Review on your Selected Topic

    You are to select a topic that does not have a recent review for this project. An exhaustive search of the literature is not expected, but a good faith effort is, so please take the following steps to determine if your topic has a recent review:

    1. Go to the Cochrane Library, type in your keywords in the search box, and under Restrict Search by Product, select Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (Cochrane Reviews), and run your search
    2. Go to PubMed and type in your keywords and run your search. Click on the Review link (see picture below) and look at the various review articles. Note: You may have to modify your keywords several times to do an adequate search, such as proprietary drug name, chemical name, synonym for condition, etc.
    3. Go to PubMed's MeSH Database, search for the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) that match your keywords, use the Send To pull-down menu to send the MeSH terms to the PubMed Search Box, and run your search. Once again, Click on the Review link to see the available reviews.
    4. Go to PubMed's Clinical Queries, Find Systematic Reviews, and type in your keywords and run your search to find previous Systematic Reviews.


    Starting your Research

    As a Ferris student, you should access PubMed through FLITE's homepage using the Find link, and then selecting Articles. You will find PubMed through both the Health and Medical Resources link off of the databases page, as well as through the alphabetical list of databases. PubMed is the publicly available version of MEDLINE that contains the contents of Old MEDLINE, current MEDLINE, and Pre-MEDLINE. This will be available to you even after you graduate, using the publicly available version of PubMed made available through the National Library of Medicine. However, as a Ferris student, you should link to PubMed from FLITE's databases link so that you can get the full-text of articles made available through the library's subscriptions.

    If you are doing research from off-campus, you will need to log-on to use databases and other online resources licensed by FSU, and will simply use your MyFSU username and password. Click here for information on off-campus database access.


    Why Use PubMed instead of MEDLINE at Ferris

    FLITE currently does not subscribe to a full-text version of MEDLINE. If you are affiliated with an institution that offers a full-text version of MEDLINE, then certainly take advantage of the full-text available through that resource. Keep in mind though that PubMed contains pre-publication information and has many helpful resources for pharmacists NOT found in MEDLINE, including select resources such as:

    • Single Citation Matcher: Have a vague or questionable citation? Use this resource to track down health-related citations using the information that you know to be correct.
    • Clinical Queries: Need a systematic review to get evidence-based medicine answers? Use the Find Systematic Reviews feature and get highly-regarded information on a topic.
    Other National Library of Medicine Databases/Resources to be Familiar with Include:
    • Toxnet: Search databases for information on toxicology, hazardous substances, etc.
    • Consumer Health: Use this link to go to MedlinePlus and find links to trusted consumer health-information. These resources have been selected by the National Library of Medicine; therefore they should contain RELIABLE information.
    • Clinical Alerts: Stay on top of medical advisories and alerts!!
    • Clinical Trials: Find out what clinical trials are available for various diseases and what institutions are participants, etc.


    Starting your Search using the MeSH Database to Get More On-topic Results


    With MeSH (Medical Subject Headings), articles that are on the same topic, but may have used different keywords, are categorized under a common term. For example, if you wanted articles on inoculations, also called vaccinations, articles on either topic would be categorized under one central MeSH term: vaccination.



    How to Limit Your Results, Especially after Keyword Searching

    • Limits link: Use this link to limit your search to certain publication types, date ranges, or to search keywords only in the title using the Search Field Tags pull-down menu located at the bottom of the limits screen, and selecting Title
      **Note: If you need a reminder of how to limit your results to only primary resources, please see the PHAR 319 Class Help Page
    • Related citations link: When you find an article that is very much on topic, use the related citations link to pull up articles with very similar topical coverage
    • Review link: This will show you only review articles (articles where somebody has reviewed multiple resources on a topic and written an overview based on the literature reviewed). Remember, not all review articles are created equally, so consider using the Clinical Queries Find Systematic Reviews function to pull-up highly regarded meta-analyses, guidelines, etc.


    Obtaining the Full-Text of Articles

    In some databases you will see an option for a Text version of the document or a PDF version. In general, the PDF version is preferable as it is most often a scanned version of the original and will therefore contain the graphics. When e-mailing, printing, or saving a group of articles, be sure to select the full-text or PDF option if available.

    Some databases contain little full-text, but allow you to link out to Ferris' holdings or the interlibrary loan request form. You will notice the Find it! links following individual citations that will indicate the availability of the article online, in the library, or the need to interlibrary loan the article. Click on the Go button and you will be taken to the online version, library holdings record, or interlibrary loan form to obtain the article you desire. See image below.

    Sample Article Link-Out:





    Evaluating your Articles

    Before requesting articles from interlibrary loan, please review the abstract and make sure that the article is on-topic. Also, please insure that the article is in a language that you speak, as some databases, such as PubMed index many non-English articles that have abstracts written in English. After you have evaluated the topical coverage and language of the article, please do not hesitate to request it through interlibrary loan if it is not available on campus.


    NLM Style/Zotero

    The NLM Style Guide

    NLM Quick Links
    Zotero Direct Link: Go directly into this handy citation formatting tool that can only be used in Mozilla Firefox.

    Zotero Quick Notes

    • If pulling in Citations from International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, you will need to add the journal issue number to the citation information within Zotero
      Example: Postgraduate Medicine, vol. 121, (1), pp. 141-151, 2009
      In the above example, you would need to add 1 to the Issue field within Zotero
    • When using the write and cite function of Zotero, the citation numbers will come in as (#). Ultimately, you'll need to change those numbers to superscript, without the parentheses. DO NOT MAKE ANY FORMATTING CHANGES TO YOUR NUMBERS UNTIL THE PAPER IS DONE. IF YOU ERASE ANY OF THOSE NUMBERS, YOU'LL ALSO ERASE THE ZOTERO CODING NEEDED FOR CITATION ORDER.
    • When citing multiple authors using Zotero's write and cite feature, non-sequential numbers are separated by a semicolon, and it should instead be a comma.
    • The citations go before the punctuation mark. Please click here to see a guide from UNC.

    Useful Library Links


    Library Homepage
    Find Articles using databases.
    Find Journals in the online catalog's journals tab.
    Find books, videos, and other library holdings using the online catalog.


    Any more questions? Contact: Alison (Ali) Konieczny / Email / Phone: 231-591-3696 / Office: FLITE 315

    Don't forget, you are welcome to come to the Oval Information Desk and ask for help any time. You can also call us 231-591-3602 or chat with us.

    Last update: March 1, 2011





    Rick Bearden
     Library Web Coordinator
    Email Form
    1010 Campus Drive
    Big Rapids, MI 49307-2279
    Questions/Comments
    Web Site Mission
    Library Telephone
    (231) 591-3500
    Fax: (231) 591-3724