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Use of Article and ArticleDate Attribute Values in Creating the Source Area of the MEDLINE®/PubMed® Citation Display

The following information is provided to assist in citing and displaying MEDLINE and other PubMed records distributed by NLM..

Note: The XML elements used by publishers to submit journal citation data to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) are different from the XML elements used when NLM exports citations to others. Please see the NCBI documentation for the import elements that NCBI then interprets to assign a PubModel value.

Data in the XML element <Article> and its attribute PubModel is used in combination with data in the element <ArticleDate> and its attribute DateType and the data in the element <PubDate> to determine the way an article should be cited and displayed. Use of the two attributes supports various models of publishing, including when journal articles are published electronically in final form and the articles are also in either a print issue (the journal Nucleic Acids Research has used this publishing model) or in an electronic collection.

The attribute PubModel on the Article element associates the item's publication date with the publication medium or media. There are five possible values for PubModel:

  1. Print
  2. Print-Electronic
  3. Electronic
  4. Electronic-Print
  5. Electronic-eCollection

The Article element PubModel attribute is derived by NLM from other data submitted by the publishers, as noted above.

The attribute DateType on the ArticleDate element is used to indicate the media of the article published on the date in ArticleDate.

Below are examples of NLM XML export along with the corresponding citation displays in PubMed.

  1. PubModel=Print

    Hardcopy print issue; whether or not there is a published electronic version of the item.
    In the XML for this type of record, the Article PubModel value is "Print" and there is no ArticleDate element:
    <Article PubModel="Print">
    <PubDate>
    <Year>2003</Year>
    </PubDate>
    The corresponding PubMed citation shows the print publication date after the journal title abbreviation using the content of the <PubDate> element:

    Abel U, Wollermann C.
    Methodological aspects of the evaluation of postoperative cancer surveillance. Part I: Validity.
    Clin Lab. 2003;49(7-8):367-77. Review.
    PMID: 12908736 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

  2. PubModel=Print-Electronic

    Hardcopy print issue with an earlier published electronic version and publisher wants articles cited by the print publication date.
    In the XML for this type of record, the Article PubModel value is "Print-Electronic" and the ArticleDate DateType value is "Electronic":

    <Article PubModel="Print-Electronic">
    <PubDate>
    <Year>2000</Year>
    <Month>Jan</Month>
    </PubDate>
    ...
    <ArticleDate DateType="Electronic">
    <Year>1999</Year>
    <Month>11</Month>
    <Day>25</Day>
    </ArticleDate>

    The corresponding PubMed citation shows the print publication date after the journal title abbreviation as the official date using the content of the <PubDate> element.  The source is followed by the Epub date notation using the content of the <ArticleDate DateType="Electronic"> element, but substituting a 3-character month for the numeric month value per the NISO ANSI 39.29 standard:

    Soon MS, Lin OS.
    Inflammatory fibroid polyp of the duodenum.
    Surg Endosc. 2000 Jan;14(1):86. Epub 1999 Nov 25.
    PMID: 10854512 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

  3. PubModel=Electronic

    a) Electronic publication only; there is no published hardcopy print version of the item.
    In the XML for this type of record, the Article PubModel value is "Electronic" and the ArticleDate DateType value is "Electronic". Note that in the following example the PubDate is identical to the ArticleDate with the exception that the Month in PubDate is expressed as a 3-character abbreviation whereas the Month in ArticleDate is expressed as a number.  The publisher chose to submit both elements even though the PubModel=Electronic; not all publishers submit both elements for this PubModel, or if they submit both, the elements do not necessarily contain the same data.

    <Article PubModel="Electronic">
    <PubDate>
    <Year>2004</Year>
    <Month>Jan</Month>
    <Day>28</Day>
    </PubDate>
    ...
    <ArticleDate DateType="Electronic">
    <Year>2004</Year>
    <Month>01</Month>
    <Day>28</Day>
    </ArticleDate>

    The corresponding PubMed citation shows the electronic publication date after the journal title abbreviation as the official date using the content of the <ArticleDate DateType=”Electronic”> element, but substituting a 3-character month for the numeric month value per the NISO ANSI 39.29 standard.

    There is no explicit indication in the date of publication that the citation is an electronic-only item, although the pagination value is often a clue and the ISSN in the record is for an e-publication.

    Leslie M.
    Hampering a heartbreaker. Antibiotic might stem injury from heart attack.
    Sci Aging Knowledge Environ. 2004 Jan 28;2004(4):nf13.
    PMID: 14749521 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

    b) Electronic publication only; there is no published hardcopy print version of the item and publishers do not provide <ArticleDate>.
    Some publishers of electronic-only journals do not use the ArticleDate element in their electronic submissions to NLM and instead use the PubDate element only. These citations to electronic-only articles are labeled as "Print" because the publisher submitted them that way.

    <Article PubModel="Print">
    <PubDate>
    <Year>2003</Year>
    <Month>Oct</Month>
    </PubDate>
    </JournalIssue>
    </Journal>

    In the corresponding PubMed citation display there is no explicit indication in the date of publication that the citation is to an electronic-only item, although the ISSN in the record is for an e-publication.

    Cassetty CT, Leonard AL.
    Epidermal nevus.
    Dermatol Online J. 2003 Oct;9(4):43.
    PMID: 14594616 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

  4. PubModel=Electronic-Print

    Electronic publication first; followed by hardcopy print publication and publisher wants articles cited by electronic publication date.
    In the XML for this type of record, the Article PubModel value is "Electronic-Print", the ArticleDate DateType value is "Electronic", and the PubDate element also has content:

    <Article PubModel="Electronic-Print">
    <PubDate>
    <Year>2004</Year>
    </PubDate>
    ...
    <ArticleDate DateType="Electronic">
    <Year>2004</Year>
    <Month>01</Month>
    <Day>16</Day>
    </ArticleDate>

    The corresponding PubMed citation displays the electronic publication date after the journal title abbreviation as the official date using the content of the <ArticleDate DateType=”Electronic”> element, but substituting a 3-character month for the numeric month value per the NISO ANSI Z39.29 standard. The source is followed by the print date notation using the content of the <PubDate> element:

    Edgar RC.
    Local homology recognition and distance measures in linear time using compressed amino acid alphabets.
    Nucleic Acids Res. 2004 Jan 16;32(1):380-5. Print 2004.
    PMID: 14729922 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

  5. PubModel=Electronic-eCollection

    Electronic publication first; followed by inclusion in an electronic collection date (similar to an issue) and publisher wants articles cited by the electronic article publication date.
    In the XML for this type of record, the Article PubModel value is "Electronic-eCollection", the ArticleDate DateType value is "Electronic", and the PubDate element also has content.

    <Article PubModel="Electronic-eCollection">
    <PubDate>
    <Year>2012</Year>
    </PubDate>
    ...
    <ArticleDate DateType="Electronic">
    <Year>2013</Year>
    <Month>01</Month>
    <Day>25</Day>
    </ArticleDate>

    The corresponding PubMed citation displays the electronic article publication date after the journal title abbreviation as the official date using the content of the <ArticleDate DateType=”Electronic”> element, but substituting a 3-character month for the numeric month value per the NISO ANSI Z39.29 standard. The source is followed by the eCollection date notation using the content of the <PubDate> element:

    Wangari-Talbot J, Chen S.
    Genetics of melanoma.
    Front Genet. 2013 Jan 25;3:330. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2012.00330. eCollection 2012.
    PMID: 23372575 [PubMed]

Last Reviewed: December 4, 2015