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A little known PubMed search feature

A little known PubMed search feature

2.2 - Do you know - Knowledge Bytes
At the end of 2022 PubMed launched the "Proximity operator" feature. At the end of 2023, it would not be surprising to find that no one in India (or only a few) is aware of this. Proximity operators - available in most databases that we have to pay for, make searching much more relevant, when we search for terms like "Under developed countries". When we search these with the tags [ti] or [tiab], we are searching for the term as a phrase. When we search them with a proximity operator, then we are searching for the terms being near each…
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Sharpen the Saw

Sharpen the Saw

1 - VS Shares
Sounds familiar? Yes - it is the 7th Habit - from Stephen Covey's book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". Covey emphasizes the need to sharpen ourselves from time to time. He describes an incident of a man continuously cutting the branches of trees with a saw. When another man suggests that he stops to sharpen the saw to make things quicker, he responds - "Can't you see I am busy cutting the branch? I do not have time to sharpen the saw"! Let us stop and think. Many of us fall into this trap. We are so busy…
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If we teach, you need to learn. And practice

If we teach, you need to learn. And practice

1 - VS Shares
I am going through a course where I am getting mentored on several skills. In one of the sessions a participant asked the mentor "Can you help me do ......?" (She asked for a specific job she needed done) And the mentor answered: "I would love to do this for you. But I cannot DO your jobs for you. You need to learn, ask for help, practice and then do it. Only then will you be able to do things independently." I thought to myself - This is partially true for the skills of literature searching and referencing, and for…
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