We’ve all been there… you are putting together a presentation and need to find some poignant images to really drive your message home. Or you are working on a paper/poster where some relevant images would help it to look more engaging and polished. The following are two tips to learn that can up your image searching game.

1. Run a search in Google Images for radiation therapy. Below the search box, click on Search Tools -> Usage Rights -> Labeled for reuse. This will display only those images that are labeled as copyright-free by the creator, have a Creative Commons license, or derive from a federal source/agency.
2. Retrieve only government/federally-derived images by searching Google Images using the domain-specific tag: “radiation therapy” site:.gov. The site:.gov portion tells Google to only search website domains ending in .gov for the phrase “radiation therapy”. (Just replace “radiation therapy” with any word of phrase related to your topic for a personalized experience).

You can also visit our Images LibGuide for links to more image searching databases and resources, or Ask Us for assistance with an image-related search or copyright question.

Does game-based learning interest you? The JAMA Network recently launched a gaming app called the JAMA Network Challenge. It is a fun, challenging way to hone your diagnostic and management skills using case reports and images from across The JAMA Network of publications. Test yourself against the clock and against your peers, and get the answers in real time as you work through each challenge, deciding what you would do next. Based on case studies from JAMA, JAMA Dermatology, JAMA Surgery, and JAMA Ophthalmology, the app allows you to improve your score – and your diagnostic skills – by allowing you to review the questions you missed.

Don’t forget to check out our Mobile Resources LibGuide for other selected apps and mobile websites organized by device or profession/interest!

Have you ever found a really great article and want to know what others are saying about it? Do you ever feel like posting a comment about an article for others to see? Perhaps you just want to know what people are saying about your own published work? If these questions spark your interest then you might want to check out PubMed Commons and PubPeer.

PubMed Commons offers users the ability to view and post comments on publications in the PubMed database. It’s a space of scientific discourse and a forum for sharing opinions on a work. Any PubMed user can view the comments directly from the database but in order to post new comments, users must have a MyNCBI account and at least one authored work in PubMed. Their Getting Started page details the eligibility requirements.

PubPeer offers a different level of service when it comes to user comments. It acts as an online journal club of scholarly works. Users can search for articles by PMID, DOI, arXiv ID, keyword, author, etc. If a comment on the retrieved article exists, it will appear in the search results. Commenting on articles is also possible in PubPeer, although there is little restriction on who can contribute. See their How To page for details.