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PubMed Tutorial, United States National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health

Search Field Tags

Terms may be qualified using PubMed's search field tags. A list of the available field names, tags, and brief field descriptions may be found in the PubMed Help under Search Field Descriptions and Tags.

  • Each search term should be followed (qualified) with the appropriate search field tag that indicates which field will be searched.

  • The search field tag must follow the term -- you cannot prequalify.

  • In the example, aromatherapy[mh] is correct and [mh] aromatherapy is incorrect.Graphic showing the example that aromatherapy[mh] is the correct way to use a search field tag and [mh] aromatherapy is incorrect

  • Tags are enclosed in square brackets.

Reminders:

  • Boolean operators -- AND, OR, NOT -- must be entered in uppercase letters.
  • Boolean operators are processed from left to right.
  • Use parentheses to nest terms together so they will be processed as a unit and then incorporated into the overall strategy.

Click Next to learn some useful information about the following search fields, or use the link below to jump directly to the page:

MeSH Headings [MH]
Subheadings [SH]

Pharmacologic Action [PA]
Text Words [TW]
Corporate Author [CN]
Personal Name as Subject [PS]
Place of Publication [PL]
Secondary Source Identifier [SI]
PubMed Unique Identifier [PMID]
Affiliation [AD]
Grant Number [GR]

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Last reviewed: 3 April 2013
Last updated: 1 December 2011
First published: 20 March 2001
Metadata| Permanence level: Permanent: Dynamic Content