The Bottom Line
- A single high-quality anchor paper is worth 50 random search hits.
- Go backward (references) to find cornerstone work; go forward (“cited by”) to find what changed.
- Use chaining to build a “map” of consensus vs controversy.
Why this matters for clinicians
Chaining is how you avoid being misled by whatever is most recent, most shared, or best marketed. It gives you intellectual lineage.
SourcePubMed Help (official): tools that support discovery
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