Remember, PubMed is a database of publication citations so that folks can easily search and find a source. A single PubMed citation contains a lot of information that can be useful, or even essential, to understand.
This page provides an overview of the information contained in a single citation in PubMed. It covers the major essentials of a publication citation page but is by no means exhaustive of the information. Furthermore, other sources (books, preprints, book chapters, etc.) are cited in PubMed and might have different information contained on their citation pages. The author of the guide chose a journal article because this is one of the most common sources on PubMed.
This "Anatomy of an Entry" uses the following publication as an example:
Amor C, Fernández-Maestre I, Chowdhury S, Ho YJ, Nadella S, Graham C, Carrasco SE, Nnuji-John E, Feucht J, Hinterleitner C, Barthet VJA, Boyer JA, Mezzadra R, Wereski MG, Tuveson DA, Levine RL, Jones LW, Sadelain M, Lowe SW. Prophylactic and long-lasting efficacy of senolytic CAR T cells against age-related metabolic dysfunction. Nat Aging. 2024 Mar;4(3):336-349. doi: 10.1038/s43587-023-00560-5. Epub 2024 Jan 24. PMID: 38267706; PMCID: PMC10950785.
The title and publication information will appear at the top of the entry. The journal, which will often be a clickable link, will generally appear in an abbreviated form based on how it is indexed in MEDLINE (the database for PubMed). If you ever need to verify the journal title and its abbreviation, you can search it at this link. Other parts of the citation will also appear above the title of the publication.
Publication Date vs. Epub Date: The publication date will be when the publication was officially published (often, but not always in print if that still applies). Some entries will also include an Epub date, which is when the publication was published online. You might also see "Online ahead of print" in this area as well. This indicates that the publisher submitted the citation to PubMed before it was officially published in print.
The entry will generally also include the information for the authors of a publication with their affiliation. You can usually click the "+expand" button to view the affiliations and other author details. Clicking the author's name will search PubMed for that author's name.
Underneath the author information, there will usually be up to three key identifiers:
Do you need to quickly capture the citation for a PubMed entry?
One of the best ways to do this is to click the ' "Cite' button on the right-side panel.
This feature will let you quickly copy (or export via a .nbib file) the citation for the source in the National Library of Medicine (NLM), American Medical Association (AMA), Modern Language Associate (MLA), or American Psychological Association (APA) citation formats. If you need other formats, it is recommended to get a reference management software such as EndNote, Mendeley, or Zotero.
