Lexis-Nexis What is Lexis-Nexis? A full-text resource that includes: . Academic Universe: national, international, news business and company information, legal, medical, and reference information. . Congressional Universe: hearing transcripts and submitted testimony, committee reports, bills and public laws, Congressional Record, Federal Register and more. . State Capitol Universe: bills, laws, and information about 50 states. . Statistical Universe: statistical data produced by the U.S. government. . Primary Sources in U.S. History: Documents critical to the experience of African Americans and women. . Government Periodicals Index: newsletters and magazines published by agencies of the U.S. government How do I get to Lexis-Nexis? 1. Using a Web browser, go to the U of L Libraries main web page: http://library.louisville.edu 2. Click on the All Databases list under the Articles section of the page and choose “L”. 3. Click on the Lexis Nexis Academic Universe link. 4. If you want to search something other than Academic Universe, click on the link to it on the left-hand side of the screen. How do I search Lexis-Nexis? The default search in Lexis-Nexis is Quick Info Quick News Search. This is a basic search of up to the last two years of news data in Lexis-Nexis. More extensive searching: 1. Click on a category that best meets your research needs (choose from News, Business, Legal, Medical, or Reference from the list on the left side of the screen). 2. Click on a subcategory. For example in the News category you can choose general, U.S., world, transcripts, etc. 3. In most categories, you will then need to select the type of source such as major papers, magazines and journals, newsletters, industry news, etc. 3. Enter search terms or keywords inside the keyword box. The default search type is phrase searching which means that if you searching words that do not combine into a phrase, you’ll need to use a “connector” (see section below). 4. Choose a date range. The default is the last 6 months. 5. Click the Search button. Connectors Use connectors to establish logical relationships between words and concepts. AND links words or phrases that must both appear anywhere in the same article. Example: bank AND deregulate—finds both bank and deregulate anywhere in the same article. OR links synonyms, alternative forms of expression, acronyms, etc. Example: doctor OR physician—finds either doctor or physician anywhere in the article. W/n links search words and phrases to create concepts. The letter “n” stands for a number from 1-255. W/n does not specify word order. Example: john W/3 doe—finds john within up to three words of doe. W/p looks for articles with search words in the same paragraph. Use W/p when you want your search words to have a general relationship to each other. Example: rule W/p sanction—finds rule within the same paragraph as sanction. Note that something similar can be done with the W/s connector which looks for your search words in the same sentence PRE/n requires both words to appear in the article and the first word must precede the second by n (a number) words. Use PRE/n when a different word order could change the meaning. Example: cable PRE/2 television finds cable television but not television cables. Search Tips . Use the Edit Search button to return to the search screen. This is useful when you need to modify or limit an existing search. . To improve your results, consider using the truncation symbol “!” at the end of the end of the word. For example, when you type…nafta and employ!…the exclamation mark tells the database to search for “employment”, “employers”, “employees”, etc. . Internal truncation can be done by using an asterisk *. This replaces one character and can be used anywhere except as the first character. For example when you type…wom*n, the search results will include the terms woman, women and womyn. . You can also limit your search to a particular “segment” of an article or report. Your choices are available from the drop-down menus beside the search boxes. For example, a search of just “headline” would be a much more narrow search than one that searched for your word in “Full-text.” Each search form has different segments. . Often search forms will have unique options for you to limit your search such as date, source material, (meaning type of magazine, news source, etc.), type of report, etc. Please consider these options carefully as they will affect the outcomes of your search. For example, if you are searching with a form that has a date option, and your search returns no results, try expanding the date range from “last six months” to “previous two years” and see if you get different results. Most of these choices will appear either as a blank to type in or a drop-down arrow. Click on the arrow to view the list of choices. Please ask a librarian if you are having trouble. How do I display the articles I find? Click on the title (underlined and highlighted) of the article you wish to display. After displaying an article, “KWIC View” (key words in context) can be used to display only the portion(s) of the article containing your search terms, plus 15 to 25 words on either side of your search terms. What can I do with the articles I display? Print: Click on the Print button (red tab) at the right top corner of the article. Then click on the Display Document button. Finally, click the Print button on your Web browser. Save to Disk: Follow the instructions for printing, but instead of click your Web browser’s Print button, click Save As instead. Saving as a text (.txt) file is probably the simplest solution. E-mail: Click the E-mail button (red tab) at the top right corner of the article and fill in the information needed. What can I do if I have questions or problems? For additional information on searching Lexis- Nexis, use the “Help” guide or ask a reference librarian. Contact a reference librarian at the William F. Ekstrom Library, 852-6747 or go to http://library.louisville.edu/services/reference.html