Oxford English Dictionary

c1230 (?a1200) Ancrene Riwle (Corpus Cambr.) (1962) 92 Thu seist the nis no neod na medecine.

Did you know that it was in the early 13th century that the word "medicine" first came into use in the English language? The Oxford English Dictionary is not just a mechanism to look up spellings and pronunciations of words, it is also the premier source to trace our language back to its early roots. And the Lamar Soutter Library now has the Oxford English Dictionary available online. From the library's homepage, click "Research Tools & Resources", then "Reference Resources" and then "Oxford English Dictionary". Happy "Haruestbels" (the earliest use, from 1597, of "Harvest Festival" or "Thanksgiving") to all.

Scientific Writing Resources

For everyone interested in writing, and your focus is the Thursday Memo, a conference, or a refereed journal, there is a wealth of literature offering assistance that ranges from grammar to getting published available in the journal literature. Searching in PubMed, try the phrase: writing/standards [mh] or the phrase: authorship [mh]. Take the results and combine with a keyword to narrow your search, e.g. writing/standards [mh] AND methodology. Using the limiter [mh], retrieves articles indexed using the term writing/standards and indicates a focus of the article.

To look at writing and grammar resources, check out the library’s web site: click on Research Tools and Resources - Reference Resources - Writing and Grammer Resources (or click here)

Two Methods to Search the Cochrane Library

On our Evidence-Based Medicine page, the Lamar Soutter Library offers two ways to search the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. If you wish to peruse the library by topic and/or review group (a great way to get a feel for available reviews), use the second link (browse only) on the page. If you would like to search by keyword or want to access the full-text systematic review (called EBM Topic Reviews), use the top "Ovid" link. Either way, you are accessing the "gold standard" of in terms of best evidence - through and consistently updated reviews of best outcomes.