LexisNexis Academic

LexisNexis Academic's sources have been selected to meet academic research needs and include:

Use the help system within LexisNexis Academic  to assist you with learning about advanced search features.  It can be accessed by clicking the Help link in the upper-right portion of the search page. Video tutorials can be accessed on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LexisNexisAcademic

In addition, a Knowledge Base is available to help you with specific features within LexisNexis and answers to some frequently asked questions have been provided below.

How do I know when to use LexisNexis Academic?

LexisNexis Academic is an outstanding service for researching news, business, and legal topics. It contains more than 6,000 sources from all over the world, drawn from print, broadcast, and online media. The deep backfile lets you find contemporary accounts of events that took place decades ago.  LexisNexis legal materials and Shepard'sCitations are recognized as the standard for legal research and are required topics in law schools throughout the U.S.

How do I choose between Easy Search and Power Search?

Use the Easy Search™ form if you just need a quick answer to a simple query or you're not familiar with advanced searching methods or you're not sure which sources to use. Enter any terms or phrases, with or without connectors, and Easy Search will determine the best searching method (terms and connectors or natural language) based on what you entered.

Use the Power Search form when you need broad flexibility not available on other search forms. You may browse and select specific sources which might not be available on other forms, search sections within a document, find terms and companies within the LexisNexis SmartIndexing Technology feature (Index Terms), choose between natural language and terms and connectors searching, etc. It is also helpful when you have a general query, are searching in an unfamiliar area, or are searching across multiple content types.

How do I choose between Terms and Connectors vs. Natural Language searching?

What is terms and connectors (or Boolean) searching?  LexisNexis research services use Boolean search logic to develop queries that include the terms and phrases that reflect ideas essential to your research, and the optional terms and connectors that let you search for term variations and link your search terms and phrases. Using other options, such as date limitations, wildcard characters, and document section searching, can help shape your search results. The LexisNexis service searches for documents containing the specific terms and combinations of terms in your search request. Every term (or form of the term) in your search request must appear in the document for that document to be included in your search results.

Terms and Connectors searching is not available on every search form. It is available on the Power Search form, and on other forms where the Additional Terms field appears. A typical search with terms and connectors might look like this:

bankrupt! W/25 discharg! AND (student OR college OR education W/5 loan)

What is Natural Language searching? Natural language searches let you enter a search in plain English, without having to use any special terms or connectors. The natural language feature's document relevance ranking gives you quick access to the most pertinent documents in your search results. A typical search with natural language might look like this:

Under what circumstances can biological parents regain custody of adopted children after an adoption?

When should I use these different types of searching?

How do I know what content I'm searching?
 

Use the Source Information icon () next to the Source name to view the list of document sections for this source. The source information page for group sources does not contain a list of document sections.