Using Noun Phrases for Navigating Biomedical Literature on Pubmed: How Many Updates Are We Losing Track of?
2011

Using Noun Phrases to Find Related Biomedical Literature on PubMed

Sample size: 883 publication 10 minutes Evidence: moderate

Author Information

Author(s): Srikrishna Devabhaktuni, Coram Marc A.

Primary Institution: Health Research and Policy, Stanford University

Hypothesis

We hypothesize that the quantities computed for the 20 million papers on PubMed will differ within 5% of the percentages of citation validation observed in our sample.

Conclusion

The study shows that using noun phrases can significantly improve the navigation and discovery of related literature on PubMed.

Supporting Evidence

  • 86% of the papers had at least one citation validated by different authors.
  • Using noun phrases resulted in a higher percentage of citation validation compared to PubMed's related citations.
  • On average, 5 search terms per paper were validated by citations from different authors.

Takeaway

This study found that using specific words and phrases from research papers can help find more related articles on PubMed, making it easier for researchers to keep up with new findings.

Methodology

The study involved extracting noun phrases from 883 papers and testing their effectiveness in retrieving related literature on PubMed.

Potential Biases

Potential bias in the selection of papers and the interpretation of related literature.

Limitations

The study's findings may not be generalizable to older papers or those with fewer citations.

Statistical Information

P-Value

p<0.05

Confidence Interval

95% confidence interval is 83%–88%

Statistical Significance

p<0.05

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1371/journal.pone.0024920

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