1. For Author

MEDLINE/PubMed:

• also shows the full names of authors, when available, in MEDLINE and XML displays (since 2002)
• records the organization names as given in the journal article. There are no standardization rules
• places editor or translator names in the author position of a citation when an author name can't be found. However, the role of "editor" or "translator" does not follow the name
• makes a distinction between authorship and investigators (also known as collaborators). The latter were implemented in journal citations created in late March 2008 forward; they are individuals who contributed to the research study but are not necessarily authors.

MEDLINE/PubMed does not:

• display ISO country codes following organization names of national bodies that don't include nationality in the name
• translate non-English organizational names

Return to Chapter 1. Journals / A. Journal Articles / Author, or

Chapter 23. Journals on the Internet / A. Journal Articles on the Internet / Author

2. For Author Affiliation

MEDLINE/PubMed:

• includes the affiliation of the first author only; took the affiliation as given in the article (1988-2013)
• includes "USA" at the end of the affiliation for all US authors (1995-2013)
• includes affiliation for each author if supplied by publisher (December 2013 -   )
• includes multiple affiliations for each author or contributor if supplied by publisher (December 2014 -   )

MEDLINE/PubMed does not:

• standardize the author affiliation field
• add information about the city, state or country of an organization
• change the order of the organization and department. The order is as the publisher gives it in the article.

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Chapter 23. Journals on the Internet / A. Journal Articles on the Internet / Author Affiliation

3. For Article Title

MEDLINE/PubMed:

• displays only the English language title for two or more equal languages, but indicates all languages of publication. Displays the transliterated or vernacular title submitted by the publisher in place of an English translation provided by the human indexer when that English translation is not yet available.
• omits the fonts of superscripts and subscripts when they cannot be reproduced and the meaning is not compromised. For example, H20 is commonly recognized as water; however, 10⁶ will be displayed as 10(6).
• displays the article title in the case style used by the journal itself, effective June 15, 2015. Prior to this date, NLM edited the journal article title case to be sentence style (capitalize only the first word of a title, proper nouns, proper adjectives, acronyms, and initialisms) for citations dating from about 1966 forward. Pre-1966 citations were converted from the original print indexes (Cumulated Index Medicus and Current List of Medical Literature) and use the case from the print index.

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Chapter 23. Journals on the Internet / A. Journal Articles on the Internet / Article Title

4. For Article Type

• MEDLINE/PubMed does not index individual meeting abstracts or book reviews
• Letters to the editor and editorials are indicated only under publication type in the Abstract display, and in the PT field in the MEDLINE view
• Interviews are indicated by publication type in the Abstract display, and in the PT field in the MEDLINE view
• The interviewer’s name was included after the article title and introduced with the phrase "Interview by" through 2014. Effective 2015, the interviewee is the first author and the interviewer is the second author.

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Chapter 23. Journals on the Internet / A. Journal Articles on the Internet / Article Type

5. For Journal Title (Journal Title Abbreviation)

After NLM establishes an abbreviation for a title, it usually stays that way in MEDLINE/PubMed, even if the rules change. You may see contradictory abbreviations for some words in titles; for example:

• Academy of Management Journal abbreviated as Acad Manage J in 1963
• but
• Access Management Journal abbreviated as Access Manag J in 2003

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Chapter 23. Journals on the Internet / A. Journal Articles on the Internet / Journal Title

6. For Edition

After NLM establishes an abbreviation for a title with an edition, the abbreviation usually stays that way in MEDLINE/PubMed, even if the rules change. You may see contradictory abbreviations for some titles with editions; for example:

• Archives of Disease in Childhood. Fetal and Neonatal Edition. was established as
• Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed
• not
• Arch Dis Child (Fetal Neonatal Ed)
• but
• British Medical Journal. Clinical Research Edition. was established as Br Med J (Clin Res Ed)

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Chapter 23. Journals on the Internet / A. Journal Articles on the Internet / Edition

7. For Type of Medium

• NLM indexes Internet journals, but does not currently display a type of medium for them in most PubMed displays; however, users may determine the type of medium that NLM used for creating the citation and indexing the article by viewing the PubMed XML format display. The version used is in the XML element <Journal Issue CitedMedium=>. Valid values after the equals sign are Print for the hard copy of a journal, and Internet for the Web-based version.
• NLM does not currently index journals in microform, CD-ROM, DVD, or audiovisual format

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Chapter 23. Journals on the Internet / A. Journal Articles on the Internet / Type of Medium

8. For Physical Description

• NLM does not currently index journals in microform, CD-ROM, DVD, or audiovisual format

Return to Chapter 1. Journals / A. Journal Articles / Physical Description

9. For Language

• MEDLINE/PubMed displays citation information only in English, but indicates all languages of publication. Translated article titles are shown in brackets to indicate a translation.

Return to Chapter 1. Journals / A. Journal Articles / Language, or

Chapter 23. Journals on the Internet / A. Journal Articles on the Internet / Language

10. For Location (Pagination or Notes)

• MEDLINE/PubMed permits publishers to choose between using traditional pagination or electronic article numbers, or using both. In cases where publishers supply article numbers as electronic location data only (not as pagination), these numbers appear as notes and pagination is absent. The unique identifiers for a citation may also appear as notes.

  • MEDLINE/PubMed example, a publisher-supplied article number for pagination:

    • J Med Internet Res. 2008 Apr 18;10(2):e11. PubMed PMID: 18440918; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2483923.
  • MEDLINE/PubMed example, publisher-supplied article number as a locator without calling it pagination, no pagination (pii means Publisher Item Identifier):

    • Euro Surveill. 2008 May 8;13(19). pii: 18863. PubMed PMID: 18761981.
  • MEDLINE/PubMed example showing the use of article number as both pagination and a note (doi means Digital Object Identifier):

    • BMJ. 2008 Jul 1;337:a295. doi: 10.1136/bmj.a295. PubMed PMID: 18595903; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2453298.

Return to Chapter 23. Journals on the Internet / A. Journal Articles on the Internet / Location (Pagination), or

Chapter 23. Journals on the Internet / A. Journal Articles on the Internet / Notes.