Searching LexisNexis Academic

Lexis, the first commercial, full-text legal information service, began in 1973. The companion news and information service, Nexis, began in 1979.

Lexis-Nexis Academic is a special version of Lexis-Nexis for academic libraries. It offers access to news and wire services; company, industry and market information; case law and law reviews; medical news; biographical information, and more.

Getting Started with Academic Universe

The Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe support site has an excellent "Knowledge Base" Tutorial with the following modules:

1. Basic Search Steps
2. Finding information about sources
3. Searching company names
4. Searching names of people
5. Using More Options
6. Using the Additional Terms field

Everything you need to know to get started is there, with examples and illustrations. We have summarized the most important information here.

First, the LexisNexis Academic main menu organizes searchable data into 5 broad subject areas: News, Business, Legal Research, Medical, and Reference.

Click an icon such as to open a menu of more specific search topics.

Click an underlined topic to open a Search Form. For example, the category News is divided into these more specific areas:

General News is a useful category and a good place to start exploring Academic Universe. Click the General News link to open a Search Form. Each subject area has a search form that varies with type of information in the database, but they are all are very similar.

To see what Sources are included in a topic search, click the small Source List button:

For any title in the list click the link to About this title to get the date that coverage began and other details.

Choosing the Correct News Category

General News

Use this option to search major newspapers. If you scroll down past the search form, you will see that a major newspaper must meet certain criteria:

"U.S. newspapers must be listed in the top 50 circulation in Editor & Publisher Year Book. Newspapers published outside the United States must be in English language and listed as a national newspaper in Benn's World Media Directory or one of the top 5% in circulation for the country."

If you want to search a general news source other than major newspapers, select a different Source type from the drop-down menu:

U.S. News

Use this category to search regional newspapers or newspapers that are not among the top 50 in circulation, such as The Charlotte Observer. First, select a region OR a state by clicking the radio button for your choice:

Then select an option from the associated drop down menu. Regions include:

• Midwest Regional Sources: Stories from Illinois, Iowa, Indiana. Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin
• Northeast Regional Sources: Stories from Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont
• Southeast Regional Sources: Stories from Alabama, Arkansas, District of Columbia,Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia
• Western Regional Sources: Stories from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas,Utah, Washington, Wyoming

States include all 50 states plus the District of Columbia.

World News

Use this option to find news articles from a non-U.S. perspective. Select a region to search from the drop down menu. Choose from:

• North/South America News Sources: Search news sources with more than 60% of  stories pertaining to Canada or Central or South America and selected stories about Canada or Central or South America from other new sources.
• European News Sources: Search news sources with more than 60% of stories pertaining to Europe and selected stories about Europe from other news sources.
• Asia/Pacific News Sources:  Search news sources with more than 60% of stories pertaining to Asia or the Pacific Rim and selected stories about Asia or the Pacific Rim from other news sources.
• Middle East/Africa News Sources: Search news sources with more than 60% of stories pertaining to the Middle East and Africa and selected stories about the Middle East and Africa from other news sources.

Using a Search Form

Choose a Basic or More Options Search Form:

Sample search using the Basic Search Form:

Note that each Search Form has at least one required search term. In the General News Search Form, you must enter a Keyword in the textbox (indicated by Entry Required).

When you type words in the Keyword textbox or other required term textbox, certain fields will be searched, depending on the information category. For example, if your category is General News, the headline and lead paragraph(s) are searched. Additional terms are searched in the full text of articles. In a business or company database, the required search term might be a company name or an SIC code. The fields searched will always be clearly designated on the Search Form.

Scroll to see Search Tips directly below every Search Form. The More Options Search Form usually has more detailed information than the Basic Search Form!  Search examples are particularly helpful for precise and advanced techniques.

Search Examples

You may use Boolean operators, such as OR and AND, use wildcard characters ("*"=1 character; "!" = any number of characters), and specify word proximity when entering a search in the required terms or additional terms textbox:

sexual harassment and (college or university)
headline (class action) and implant*
funeral w/5 costs and regulat!

Additional Terms are usually searched in the full-text and have a Boolean AND relationship with the required term:

classroom
cremat! or embalm!

In the Additional Terms textbox, you can also specify a searchable field. Type the field name, then, enclosed in parentheses, type the word(s) you want to find.

author (dave barry)
publication (chicago tribune)
caption (elephant dung)

Sample search using the More Options Search Form:

The More Options Search Form makes it easy to do complex searches and to limit your search to a particular publication. For example, it is easy to limit your search to a specific field by choosing an option from the drop-down menu next to each search term textbox.

Searchable fields for news documents are:

HEADLINE
HEADLINE AND LEAD PARAGRAPH
FULL-TEXT
CAPTION
AUTHOR

Search Tips

There are two ways to limit your search to a particular publication:

1. Click the Sources button and make sure that the publication you want appears in the list. Click the tab for a More Options Search Form and type part or all of the title in the textbox; or
   
   
2. Click the Sources button and make sure that the publication you want appears in the list. Click the tab for a Basic Search Form and type the title in the additional terms textbox:
   
   
   

Limiting by Date

Enter your desired dates in the From and To input boxes on the Search Form.
Detailed instructions are provided below the Search Form.
You can limit your search to:

• a specific day
• all documents issued on or before a particular date
• all documents issued on or after a particular date
• a date range

Date entry is both flexible and simple. The easiest way to enter a date range is like this:

Enter a beginning date in the From box, such as: 04/01/88
Enter an ending date in the To box, such as: 10/5/88

Because the Lexis-Nexis databases are so big, it is advantageous to use all the search flexibility at your disposal! Boolean operators, word proximity, and truncation will make your searches more precise and improve results.

Boolean Operators

Word Proximity and Truncation

Search for:	Example:
a phrase	volkswagen beetle
a wildcard character in a word (except the first character in a word)	wom*n         finds woman or women gam**ing      finds gaming or gambling
any ending on a word or word root (Truncation used on very short words may give odd results.**)	negligen!     finds negligent, negligently,                       or negligence
words in the same document	airplanes or helicopters trains and airplanes
words separated by any number of words in any order	john w/3 doe albright w/20 peace talks
words in the same paragraph words not in the same paragraph	rule w/p sanction cable not w/p tv
words in the same sentence words not in the same sentence	sanction w/s frivolous market not w/s share
words in order within n words words not within n words	cable pre/2 television  finds cable television, but not television cables rico not w/5 puerto both words may appear but not within 5 words
words must appear at least n times in a single document (n=number from 1 - 255) (Use this option to find "in depth" articles.)	atleast3(peace talks) and albright atleast5(budget) and atleast5(defense)

**Words that work best are those that are unique in their truncated form.
Example: If you search for fir! (thinking that you want to find fired, firing, or fires), your
results will also include first, firm, and so on.

Searching for Case Law

Working with Search Results

Results are sorted in reverse chronological order, with the most recent articles first. To sort by frequency of terms and "relevance" as defined by a computer algorithm, click the Sort by Relevance button:

If you want to print a list of article citations, click the checkbox next to each one you want to mark for printing, saving, or e-mailing:

To print your marked list, click the Print/Save Options button on the header at the top of the screen:

On the next screen, choose your options, then click the Display Citations button to reformat your list for printing. Cick your browser's print icon or choose Print from the browser File menu.

To print a FULL-TEXT document, click the underlined source to display it. Then click Print/Save Options. On the next screen, click the Display Document button to reformat your article for printing. Click your browser's print icon or choose Print from the browser File menu.

Company Financial Information

Company financial data may contains tables that will display best on the Web in a monospaced font. Change your browser Proportional Font option to Courier New 10 pt. so that the information will line up properly in columns. Internet Explorer will let you choose Courier New as a Proportional Font. If you are using Netscape, you can save your results to a floppy disk and change the font to Courier New 10 pt. in your word processor.

If you need more help, please ask a reference librarian!

Go back to the top | Lexis-Nexis Company Financial Information | Research Guides

Ramsey Library UNCA

Last updated 7 August 2003.