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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