MEDLINE & LITERATURE SEARCH
VADS CORNER — Medline · Literature search · Free full text
Links and access checked 20 October 2026
This page is about finding the paper, not reading the journal. It is arranged by what you are trying to do: search the biomedical literature, get the full text free where it exists, find the best evidence, check trial registers, catch preprints, and use the indexes closest to home in Asia-Pacific. Once you have found the paper, the Medical Journals page will take you to the journal. Sites that are free to use carry a green FREE flag.
FREE free to use. No flag means a subscription or registration may be needed. NEW added in this edition MOVED changed address or replaced an older service
Start here
Search in PubMed, then follow the free full-text link.
PubMed · PubMed Central · Europe PMC · Google Scholar · DOAJ. Read the original paper, not only the abstract or someone’s summary, and check the figure, the population and whether the result was statistically significant.
Search the literature Free full text Evidence and trials Preprints Citation databases Regional indexes Search tips Related Vads Corner pages About the links
Search the literature
- PubMed (US National Library of Medicine) — the main free index of biomedical literature. FREE MOVED
This replaces the old NLM Entrez query address (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) listed on the earlier version. - NCBI search across databases — one search box across the NCBI databases: literature, genes, proteins and more. FREE MOVED
This replaces the old “Global NCBI search engine” (gquery). - MeSH Browser — the controlled vocabulary used to index MEDLINE. Finding the right heading makes a search much sharper. FREE NEW
- PubMed User Guide FREE NEW
- Google Scholar — broad academic search, useful for finding a paper you only half remember. FREE NEW
- Medscape — clinical reference articles and news. Registration may be required.
PubMed shortcuts for topics on this site
Each link runs the search live, so the results are always current. NEW
- Nipah virus · Dengue · Japanese encephalitis · Chikungunya · H5N1
- Tuberculosis in Malaysia · Measles in Malaysia · Vaccine effectiveness · COVID-19 vaccines
Free full text
- PubMed Central (PMC) — the free full-text archive of the US National Library of Medicine. FREE NEW
- Europe PMC — free full text and preprints, searched alongside PubMed records. FREE NEW
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) — confirms that a journal is genuinely open access. FREE NEW
- Unpaywall — a browser extension that finds legal free copies of paywalled papers. FREE NEW
- Free Medical Journals — a directory of journals with free access. FREE
Evidence and trials
- Cochrane Library — systematic reviews of treatments. Abstracts are free; full access varies by country. NEW
- ClinicalTrials.gov — registry of trials, with results where reported. FREE NEW
- WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform — searches trial registers worldwide. FREE NEW
- ICMJE — authorship, trial registration and publication standards. NEW
Preprints
Preprints are posted before peer review. They are useful for speed, but treat the findings as provisional and look for the published version. NEW
Citation databases
- Scopus — citation database (subscription). NEW
- Web of Science — citation database (subscription). NEW
- Embase — biomedical and pharmacological database, strong on drugs (subscription). NEW
Regional indexes
- Global Index Medicus (WHO) — literature from low- and middle-income countries, including regional indexes that PubMed misses. FREE NEW
- For Malaysian and regional journals, see the Asia-Pacific journals section of the Medical Journals page.
Search tips
- Start with a narrow question, then widen it if you get too few results.
- Use quotation marks for exact phrases, and try both the common name and the MeSH heading.
- Filter by article type (clinical trial, systematic review) and by date to cut the noise.
- Follow the “similar articles” and “cited by” links from one good paper to find the rest.
- Save useful searches in a free My NCBI account and set up email alerts.
Related Vads Corner pages
About the links
- Checked 20 October 2026. If a link stops working, tell me.
- Access changes. A site can change its model; a home page is open to everyone even when its articles are not. PubMed shows abstracts free, and PMC and Europe PMC carry the free full texts.
- If a link dies, search PubMed for a recent article and follow it back to the source.