About NEJMSearch Help
Search Basics
Types of Searches
Results
Searching for Figures, Videos, and Other Multimedia Content
For best results, enter the minimum amount of information, such as volume/page number, authors, and/or specific search terms, to uniquely identify the article or articles you’re looking for.
SEARCH BASICS
Here are some tips to help you maximize the effectiveness of your search:
Search terms – NEJM search will first return articles containing all of the terms entered in the search box, and then will return articles containing some of the terms you entered.
Phrases – Enclosing a phrase in quotations (“”) in the basic search at the top of any page will narrow the results to just the desired phrase. For example, entering “left atrial” will return documents containing only that exact phrase.
Author names – To view NEJM articles by a particular author, enter the first initial and full last name (e.g., J. Smith, or Solomon, S.). Other author formats are also acceptable:
Smith, JM
Smith, J
Smith, JM
J Smith
Citations – To quickly access any NEJM article directly, enter the article’s citation in the search box. The article’s citation includes the volume number and the article’s start page, separated by a colon (e.g., 355:2226). You can also enter volume and any page number in that article’s page range, e.g. 355:2227.
Spell check – Search terms are checked against a dictionary that includes all terms in the Journal. Enhance your search results by using the "wildcard" (*) if you are unsure of spelling or are using a fragmented word. For example, a search for child* will return articles containing child, childcare, and children; likewise, a search for phospha* will return articles containing phosphatase and phosphate.
Punctuation – Pay particular attention to terms containing hyphens, periods, or other punctuation. NEJM Search will ignore punctuation; letters or numbers separated by punctuation are treated as separate words. For example search IL-4 with "il-4" or "il 4" (with a space), but not with il4 (without a space).
TYPES OF SEARCHES
A NEJM search can be customized to return articles whose relevance more precisely match your needs, sorted by Most Recent, Most Viewed, and Most Cited (see Results below).
Author Search
A NEJM search using the author's name as the search term will return the articles written by that author – and the Advanced Search offers you the ability to search ANY or ALL of a group of authors. To view NEJM articles prioritized by a particular author, enter the last name followed by the first initial(s). Note that the initials are optional. The following author formats are accepted by our engine:
Smith, JM
Smith, J
Smith, JM
J Smith
Article Category Search
You can run a NEJM search for a specific article type by adding the name of the article type to your search term. For example, search for diabetes mellitus editorial to view results with the term diabetes mellitus and article type editorial at the top of the results list. You may get better results by searching for the term, then narrowing your search by Article Category once the results are returned.
There are multiple NEJM Article Types within each Article Category. To help you narrow your search by article types, please go to the Article Index.
Citation Search
Using the actual NEJM citation (volume and page number) will take you directly to the article. The volume number and start page (e.g., 348:2057) are required for a citation search. (If you enter a page number that falls within the range for that article, the citation search will also take you directly to that article.) Following are examples of other formats that are acceptable for citation searches:
348:2057
5/22/2003, p 2057
348:2057-8
2003; 348: 2057-2058
348/21/2057
348-21-2057
Volume 348:2057-2058
N Engl J Med 2003 May 22;348(21):2057-8
Phrase Search
A NEJM search for a group of words will by default return results for ALL of the words, and then will return additional results for ANY of the words in the phrase.Verbatim results will be returned for phrases entered in quotes. For example, entering “left atrial” will return documents containing only that exact phrase, not documents containing just one of the two terms.
Using Operators
You can create and execute NEJM searches with more than two search terms that use the operators OR, AND, NOT. Along with these operators, you can use parentheses to further clarify your search statement.
Example 1. human AND diseases
If you enter this query, you will retrieve only articles that mention both human and diseases.
Example 2. antiplatelet NOT aspirin
This query would search for articles about antiplatelet that did not mention aspirin
The Advanced Search offers you these same capabilities using fielded searches.
Using Wildcards
The wildcard character (*) matches any number of characters. That means that you can use it as a placeholder for any sequence of letters or symbols. For example, a search for child* will return articles containing child, childcare, and children. Likewise, a search for phospha* will return articles containing phosphatase and phosphate.
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RESULTS
Your search results are displayed in a number of different ways and can be manipulated to fine tune your query to more precisely retrieve relevant articles.
Display
A NEJM search will return results in the Most Recent category by default. You can re-sort the results by Most Viewed or Most Cited by clicking those links within the results set. Filters appear in the left rail to help you narrow or expand your search results. The total number of articles within each filter option is shown in parenthesis. Several options to further narrow or expand your search are available, including:
Limit by Specialty – You can narrow your results to only articles tagged with a particular medical specialty of interest.
Limit by Article Category – You can narrow your results to only articles within Research, Review, Perspective, Commentary, Clinical Cases, and Other. The total number of available articles appears next to each article category.
Limit by Date – By default, the past 10 years of NEJM content is shown in search results. You can change this by clicking Complete Archive or selecting a particular date range for your search.
Show Only CME – A checkbox appears at the bottom of the filter area, which toggles your search to only articles containing CME exams.
Feedback – Tell us what you think by selecting the “Did you find this search useful” links above the search box.
Save Search – If you are a registered user or subscriber, you can save your searches to be re-run at a later time.
RSS Feed for Search Results – You can subscribe to an RSS feed of the search results. The feed is a function that will notify you when any new articles appear that match your search criteria.
Pagination – You can quickly page through search results using previous or next navigation links.
Sort Results – Search results can be sorted by Most Cited and Most Viewed. See below for a description of result sorting options.
Search Suggestions – This is a list of search terms others have found useful. It is based on terms others have entered which are similar to your search terms.
Sorting Options
There are three options for sorting results:
Most Recent – Your search results are sorted by default in reverse-chronological order, with the most recently-published articles first.
Most Viewed – Your search results are sorted by most viewed first.
Most Cited – Your search results are sorted by most cited first. The citation index tool used on NEJM.org is Crossref, which provides updated results daily.
By default, your search will return articles published from 10 years prior to the current month of the current year. To filter the result set of articles published during a particular time period, you can adjust the date filters accordingly and re-run the search. Selecting the entire archive executes a search against all our content from 1812-present.
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SEARCHING FOR FIGURES, VIDEOS, AND OTHER MULTIMEDIA CONTENT
In addition to the Browse pages for multimedia and interactive content, there is a toggle in search results that shows your results in Figures & Multimedia. To try this, search for your term, and then click Figures & Multimedia in the results set. You’ll now see figures and interactive content related to your search term. Filters appear in the left rail allowing you to narrow your results by medical specialty, media type, and publication date. Indicators beneath each result indicate what type(s) of media that result contains (audio, video, interactive).
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