LEXIS-NEXIS ACADEMIC UNIVERSE  

   LexisNexis has five major divisions for searching:              

News

full text articles from major papers in the United States and around the world 
Business   business news, accounting literature, company profiles and financial reports, and SEC filings
Legal Research   legal news, case law, state and federal codes and regulations
Medical medical news, articles from medical journals, and citations from the medical literature 
Reference biographical information, state and country profiles, World Almanac, famous quotations, and polls and surveys
Use Lexis-Nexis to obtain full text articles from major newspapers and reliable news magazines. If you need  scholarly articles, use Academic Search Premier or one of the specialized databases. 

 Quick Info Screen 

The Quick News Search is primarily useful for looking up specific events or news items that occurred within the last two years. You may also search for a court case or for company information. 

Note: We recommend selecting Guided Search, in order to have more options for focusing your search and retrieving the most useful information

 Guided News Search  

The information that follows provides search tips that enable you to retrieve the most helpful information, by  combining keywords and using truncation and wildcards. See explanations below.

                      1.  Use truncation or wildcards to retrieve variant spellings:  

*

In LexisNexis each * replaces one character in a word. You may use it anywhere except in place of the first letter. Use multiple * to replace more than one letter.

Examples: Psych****y will find either psychology or psychiatry, but not psychologically.  
                  Wom*n retrieves woman or women. 
                  Bernst**n retrieves Bernstein or Bernstien.  

 !  
 

To search for a word with various endings, use one ! to replace an unlimited number of letters following the root.  

Examples: Litigat! finds litigate, litigates, litigator, litigation, litigated, litigating
                  Educat! finds educate, educating, educator, education, educable 


 
 2.
   
Boolean operators (and, or, and not) are words that connect keywords in ways that control the number of records you retrieve and enable you to find more specific information. 

The Guided News Search contains five steps that guide you through the process of entering 
your terms and setting helpful limits:   
                 
Step One:   Select a news category appropriate for your search. General News is the broadest search and retrieves information from many major national and international papers. U.S. News gives you access to regional, state, and local news sources. Another very useful option is Arts & Sports News, which includes reviews of books, movies, plays, and music, in addition to sports and entertainment news.  
 Step Two:   Select a news source. The types of sources available in this step depend on the selection that you made in Step One. The source list for each category contains different titles that are appropriate for that particular type of news.  
 Step Three:  

Enter search terms. Notice that in the drop-down menu, you may select the field where you want your terms to appear. The options are explained below:

Headline, lead paragraphs, and terms means the database will search for your keywords in the title, first few paragraphs, or in the descriptive words about the article.

Headline means that the words will appear in the title.

Full Text means that the keywords may appear anywhere in the article. They might be used in an insignificant way, so you are likely to retrieve hits that are not useful.  
 Step Four:   Narrow to a particular date range. Lexis-Nexis includes citations for materials that date back to the mid-1970s. Notice the choices in the drop-down menu. You may select an option from the menu, enter a range of years (such as 1992-1995), or type specific dates in the space provided, as shown.

Examples: 1/1/1999 – 1/31/1999 or Jan. 1, 1999 – Jan. 31, 1999.
(Capitalization and punctuation are not necessary.)  
 Step Five:   Search this publication title. To search in particular publications, click on Source List next to Step Two, and follow the brief directions, or you may type the title(s) of the publications into the box under Step Five. (If you enter more than one title, separate them by or.)  

                                        

NOTE: If you have any questions or need assistance with searching, consult the Help section of the database, or speak with a reference librarian.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     August 2005