Tools to help in research

[JACK]

Finding relevant articles on the net has been made easy by sites like google (esp google scholar) and Pubmed.

But then I was faced with a more daunting task of finding articles in my own computer. There were so many of them (I think the last I counted them there were 2000 plus) that when I needed one relevant to a topic I was searching, it was an impossible task.

So then with some advice from friends I installed two tools (freeware) on my computer which made my life easy. I thought I will share this with you all.

For internet browsing I use Mozilla Firefox. I have integrated zotero (http://www.zotero.org/) into it. Zotero really makes it very easy to arrange papers , generate bibliography record, etc)

The other tool I use is Copernic desktop search (http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/index.html). You have to use it to understand that you cannot live without it. You can find any article in your computer in a few seconds.

I hope you all find this informative.
May I request other members if they have any other tools, to share with all of us

[JACK]

How to go about collecting information on the net? There are so many good websites which help you in your quest. I will list a few which I frequently use. If anyone else knows of other relevant sites, kindly do add to the list.

1) Cochrane reviews (http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/)

2) Pubmed (www.pubmed.gov/)

3) CRD Databases (http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/crdweb/)

4) Clinical Trials (http://clinicaltrials.gov/)

5) Clinical Query Page of Pubmed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query/static/clinical.shtml)...Here you can change your filters to be sensitive or specific and also specify which category your search falls under

6) Meta Search Engine Trip (http://www.tripdatabase.com/index.html)

7) Meta search engine Sumsearch (http://sumsearch.uthscsa.edu/)....try the "check my strategy" tab

8) Meta search engine Scirus (http://www.scirus.com/)...It also suggests keywords automatically based on your querry to help you narrow it down

And of course last but not the least GOOGLE..... (http://scholar.google.com/)

[JACK]

I found this quite interesting interface

LINK (https://pmi.nlm.nih.gov/slim/)

[Stefan Johansson]

"Pubmed Slider Interface" - interesting idea. Makes it easier to do searches, but "everything" is already there at the regular PubMed site, one just need to learn how PubMed is organised and how the syntax works (not difficult!)

I have started to use a great reference manager for Mac's Bookends. (http://www.sonnysoftware.com/bookends/bookends.html)
Works better than EndNote!