LexisNexis and Westlaw Campus

LexisNexis and Westlaw Campus Research:
Searching Tips

When constructing a search it is often useful to use connectors to combine concepts. You can use connecting terms such as "and" and "or" to tell the search software how to search for your concepts to achieve the most precise results. The following list describes the connectors that are available for use in the LexisNexis and Westlaw Campus Research databases, with examples to illustrate how they work. You can use the links in the following table to jump directly to the connectors you are interested in learning more about.

And	Phrases
Proximity Connectors (w/s, w/p, w/n)	Parentheses
Or	Abbreviations/Acronyms
Not	Other Connectors
Wildcards (!, *)

AND
Using the "and" connector between two concepts ensures that both of the concepts will appear somewhere in the text of every document retrieved.

LexisNexis uses: and
Example: doctor and malpractice

Weslaw Campus uses: & (however, typing out the word and will also work)
Example: narcotics & warrant

PROXIMITY CONNECTORS (w/s, w/p, w/n, etc.)
Sometimes you may want to ensure that the concepts you are looking for appear near each other. When using the "and" connector you may retrieve documents in which your terms appear many paragraphs apart and therefore are not really related. You can get around this problem by using proximity connectors.

LexisNexis uses:
w/s (concepts must appear within the same sentence)
w/p (concepts must appear within the same paragraph)
w/n (insert a number value where the "n" is and the concepts will appear within that number of
words, regardless of which concept appears first)
Examples:
malpractice w/s insurance
malpractice w/p liability
copyright w/3 infringement

Westlaw Campus Research uses:
/s (concepts must appear within the same sentence)
/p (concepts must appear within the same paragraph)
/n (insert a number value where the "n" is and the concepts will appear within that
number of words, regardless of which concept appears first)
Examples: malpractice /s insurance
malpractice /p liability
copyright /4 infringement

In the above examples, the concepts included in the search may appear in any order within the documents retrieved. That is, searching for "personal w/3 jurisdiction" in LexisNexis will retrieve every document where the word personal precedes the word jurisdiction by no more than three spaces, and vice versa. Sometimes you may only want to retrieve documents in which the first concept you type always precedes the second. In such a case use the following connectors.

LexisNexis uses: pre/n (requires that the first concept precede the second by the specified number of words)
Example: habitat pre/2 humanity

Westlaw Campus Research uses : +n (requires that the first concept precede the second by the specified number of words)
Example: habitat +2 humanity

OR
The "or" connector is useful when searching for synonymous terms. Using the "or" connector between two concepts ensures that at least one of the concepts will appear in every document retrieved by the search.

LexisNexis uses: or
Example: lawyer or attorney

Westlaw Campus Research uses: a space (although you may type out the word or if you like)
Example: lawyer attorney

NOT
Sometimes a word's meaning can vary dramatically depending on context and you may want to eliminate other possible meanings from your search results. You can do this by using variations of the "not" command. For example, if you are searching for cases about RICO statutes you may want to eliminate documents including the words Puerto Rico to ensure you are only retrieving cases with the desired meaning of "rico".

LexisNexis uses:
and not (a term following the connector will not appear anywhere in the document)
not w/n (insert a number value for n and the term following the connector cannot appear within that number of words of the term preceding the connector)
Examples:
rico and not puerto (this would exclude all documents containing Puerto Rico)
rico not w/10 puerto (this allows you to retrieve documents including Puerto Rico as long as another meaning of "rico" is used more than 10 spaces away from the name Puerto Rico)

Westlaw Campus Research uses: % (you can also type in the words but not)
Examples:
rico % puerto
rico but not puerto

WILDCARDS (!, *)
Wildcard characters are useful when you are unsure of a word's spelling or you want to search for all variations of a root word. LexisNexis and Westlaw Campus Research use identical wildcards in exactly the same way.

LexisNexis and Westlaw Campus Research use:
* (to represent a single character place)
! (to expand a root word to include all possible endings)
Examples:
wom*n (will search for woman or women)
jur** (expands the search by two character places; will look for jury or juror but not jurisdiction)
object! (looks for all variations of the root word including object, objected, objection, objecting, objectionable, etc)

PHRASES
When you want to search for a phrase or ensure that a document is retrieved only if your terms appear adjacently to one another, enclose the phrase within quotation marks.

LexisNexis and Westlaw Campus Research use: " "
Examples:
"attractive nuisance"
"directed verdict"

PARENTHESES
Sometimes you need to construct a more sophisticated search utilizing more that one connector to link concepts. In such a case it is useful to use parenthesis around groups of terms. This is called nesting and it provides the search software with instructions on what part of your search query should be executed first.

LexisNexis and Westlaw Campus Research use: ( )
Examples:
(physician or doctor) and (liability w/s malpractice) [LexisNexis example]
(physician doctor) & (liability /s malpractice) [Westlaw Campus Research example]

The parentheses appearing around the "physician or doctor" segment tells the software that the first thing you want it to do is to capture all of the documents containing at least one of these terms. Once the software has collected every document containing either physician or doctor into a subset, it will then search that subset for documents that also contain the terms "liability" and "malpractice" within the same sentence. Any documents within the subset that do not meet this criteria will be dropped out, and only those documents that satisfy all the parts of your search query will be retrieved.

ABBREVATIONS/ACRONYMS
Sometimes an abbreviation or acronym is also a word, or appears as a series of letters within a word. Both LexisNexis and Westlaw Campus Research have provided methods of searching specifically for abbreviations.

LexisNexis uses: allcaps( )
Example: allcaps(AIDS) (searches for the disease, not the pluralized form of the word aid)

Westlaw uses: periods behind each letter
Example: E.P.A (searches for E.P.A., EPA, E. P. A., and E P A)

OTHER CONNECTORS

LexisNexis uses: atleastn Note: use this connector only when searching full text
Example: atleast5(competitive intelligence)

This search requires that the phrase competitive intelligence appear a minimum of five times in each document retrieved. The more your concept appears in a document, the more likely it is that your concept is a major focus of the article. This command can be used to eliminate documents that only make a passing mention of your concept, thereby eliminating irrelevant documents.

Last revised: 15 August 2005 BL
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LexisNexis and Westlaw Campus Research: Searching Tips

LexisNexis and Westlaw Campus Research:
Searching Tips