You can determine how your results are displayed by accessing the Display Options button in the top right corner of the results page.
A PubMed’s default format setting is to display results in Summary view with abstract snippets shown.
B Summary formatting limits what you’re able to see and forces you to click the title to see the detailed record and the full abstract.
C To read the abstract without having to advance to the next screen, you can change the format setting to Abstract.
D Abstract formatting expands several sections of the record, such as the source type (Randomized Controlled Trial) and abstract. You can further expand the author affiliations and supplementary information, and full-text buttons appear below the abstract. To view similar articles and all other data for the article, click Proceed to details.
E You can also adjust the number of results that appear on each page by choosing a number from the Per Page dropdown menu in the Display Options. The default is 10, but you can change to as many as 200. PubMed will adhere to this setting regardless of whether you’re viewing citations in Summary or Abstract view.
F By default, PubMed sorts results by relevance, with the topmost articles considered the Best Match for your search. You can easily sort the results by date instead—by choosing either most recent (date the article was added to PubMed) or publication date (date the article was published in a journal)—or you can sort them alphabetically by first author’s name or journal title.
NOTE When you switch to one of the non-default options, you’ll also have the option of reverse-sorting for that option. For example, reverse-sorting Most Recent will put the least recent at the top of the list.
