Finding Articles: Using LexisNexis

Most databases tend to share a number of the same search tricks as you can use in our VuFind catalog.

• About stop words -- Most databases ignore very common English words and contractions, sometimes called "stop words." Be careful when using stop words in searches as you may get unexpected results (e.g. searching for "Into the Wild" will ignore both "into" and "the" and search only for "wild"). For a full list of stop words ignored by VuFind searches, follow this link. Again, most of these stop words will be in common between VuFind and most databases.
• Use quotations marks to keep phrases together like "West Side Story" and "social justice". But be careful -- make sure something is really a phrase or you might miss important results. Stop words may still be ignored in exact phrase searches!
• Use truncation (putting * after the root of a word) to find variations of a word. Librar* finds library, libraries, librarian, and librarians. This can be a very useful tool for expanding a search to include related terms.
• Using boolean operators -- these are simple words (AND, OR, NOT) used as conjunctions to combine or exclude keywords in a search, resulting in more focused and productive results. This should save time and effort by eliminating inappropriate hits that must be scanned before discarding.
  • AND -- requires both terms to be in each item returned. If one term is contained in the document and the other is not, the item is not included in the resulting list. (Narrows the search)
  • OR -- either term (or both) will be in the returned document. (Broadens the search) 
  • NOT -- the first term is searched, then any records containing the term after the operators are subtracted from the results. (Be careful with use as the attempt to narrow the search may be too exclusive and eliminate good records). If you need to search the word not, that can usually be done by placing double quotes around it.
• Using parentheses -- Using the ( ) to enclose search strategies will customize your results to more accurately reflect your topic. Search engines deal with search statements within the parentheses first, then apply any statements that are not enclosed.
  • Example: A search on (smoking or tobacco) and cancer returns articles containing: smoking and cancer; tobacco and cancer smoking; cancer, and tobacco; but does not return smoking or tobacco when cancer is not mentioned. 

LexisNexis is a general database which draws from over 17,000 distinct sources, and includes a variety of legal, business, and news information. It is best used for newspapers, company information, and legal cases, which makes it an excellent resource for popular and primary sources.

The basic search is fairly straightforward and will allow you to search through newspapers, state and federal cases, law reviews, and company profiles simultaneously. You can also browse front page news by following some of the hot topics links. If you want more specific information, you can click the box above the search bar to search by a specific subject or topic, which will bring up a menu of selections like this:

Alternatively, other advanced search options are available by clicking the "Advanced Options" drop-down located under the search bar. Among the advanced options are the ability to restrict your results to certain date ranges (help get the most recent news), to certain publications, search within only a certain segment of the text (helpful if you want sources by a specific author or want to find a specific word in a headline), or select between the types of content that you want to search (newspapers, state and federal cases, law reviews, and company profiles). The advanced search menu will look like this:

Once you select your search parameters, you will click the "Apply" button at the bottom of the Advanced Options box and then enter your keywords into the search box as normal.