Using LexisNexis Academic Universe

DESCRIPTION | RECORDS | SEARCHING (Quick/Basic Searching, Other Quick Search Options, Guided Searching) | LIMITING | VIEWING | PRINTING/SAVING/E-MAILING | SEARCH THIS DATABASE

DESCRIPTION

LexisNexis Academic Universe offers full-text access to news, business, legal, and medical information.  It also includes information from highly specialized trade journals, leading national and international newspapers, SEC documents, state, federal and international legal materials, and the following general reference sources:  Biographical Information, Country Profiles, Polls & Surveys, Quotations, State Profiles, and World Almanac.

Top of Page

RECORDS

LexisNexis records include source information and full text versions of articles, legal cases, and more.  The source information varies depending on the type of source the record represents.  News article records include information on the newspaper edition that the article comes from, the article's title (headline), author (byline), page number (section) and length.  Legal cases include the full case name and legal citation information.  The full-text of the article begins after the citation ends.

Top of Page

SEARCHING

Top of Page

Performing a Quick or Basic Search

To perform a search in the quick or basic search mode:

1. Enter a keyword or phrase in the search box labeled Quick News Search or Basic and click on the Search button.
2. Using the drop-down menu under Date, select an appropriate choice for your search. You have the following options: Today, Previous week, Previous month, Previous six months, Previous year, and Previous two years. (LexisNexis will automatically search Previous six months if you do not select another date range.
3. Lexis-Nexis will not process your search if it is too broad; specifically, it will not return more than 125 results in Quick News search mode.  If your search returns too many results, you may want to use a Guided News Search or Guided Search (see below for more information).  The system will allow up to 1,000 documents to be retrieved in these modes.

Other Quick Searching Options

Lexis-Nexis has two other quick searching options available when you scroll down on the initial Quick Search screen. These two quick search options (Get a case and Company Information) allow you to search for information either about a specific legal case or a specific company. You can retrieve a legal case using either the legal citation or the party names. The company search gives the option of limiting your search to US Public Companies, US Private Companies, or International Company Reports.

Top of Page

Performing a Guided Search

To perform a guided search, click on either the Guided News Search or Guided Search tab.

1. Enter search terms in the boxes provided.
2. Select the appropriate Boolean operator (and, or, not) using the pull down menus provided.
3. Lexis-Nexis also allows you to select "proximity operators."  W/5 means that your words must be within five words of each other; w/s requires that they be in the same sentence, and w/p requires that they be in the same paragraph (This is a good way to limit your search results).
4. Choose the part of the record that you wish to search.  The default setting is Headline, but you can change this to Headline and Lead Paragraph(s), Full Text, Caption or Author.
5. If you wish, you can change the date range, just as you can in the Quick News search mode, or you may limit the date to a more specific date range by clicking in the button beside From, and specifying a date range. For example:

   

6. You can also limit your search to a particular publication using the box labeled Search this Publication Title. To find out what publications you have to choose from, click on Sources at the top of the page and browse the list of Sources alphabetically, or search for a publication by typing in a title in the text box provided.
7. Click on the Search button when you are ready to run your search.

Top of Page

LIMITING

If you find that your search has returned too many results, you can either click on the Edit Search link at the top of your screen to change your search parameters, or - if you are in guided search mode - you can use the FOCUS feature to search for words or phrases within the results you already have. To limit using this feature:

1. Type the term you wish to add to your search in the FOCUS box at the top of the screen.
2. Click on the Search Within Results button.

VIEWING

You can view your document list 25 citations at a time. Search terms are displayed at the top of the page. Your results are automatically sorted by date, with the most recent first. Click on the Relevance link to sort by relevance.  To change the default display, use the tabs near the top of your screen:

• Click on Expanded List to see your search terms as they appear in the documents you have retrieved. 
• Click on KWIC to see your keyword in context (this displays more contextual information than the Expanded List feature).
• Click on the Full tab to view the full text of the documents.  The first document of the list will be shown; click on Next to advance to the next document, or Document List to return to the results screen.

Top of Page

PRINTING/SAVING/E-MAILING

Depending on the relevance and/or number of results returned from your search, you can print, save or e-mail all the records on your results list, or you can select specific records. If you want only the records that interest you, mark them by clicking in the boxes next to the citations labeled "Tag for delivery." 

To print or save a list of citations:

1. Tag the records that interest you by clicking in the appropriate boxes.
2. Click on Print at the top of your screen.
3. You are brought to a screen where All citations or All checked citations is selected by default. You can also select Just these citations and type citation numbers into the box provided.
4. Specify the format of results (Document List or Expanded List).
5. Click on the Display Citations button.
6. Use your browser's print function to print your list; use the save function to save your results to a disk.  If you are saving, remember to save to the a:/ drive, and save as a text (.txt) document.

To print or save an article or document:

1. Click on the article's link to display the full text.
2. Click on Print at the top of your screen.
3. Click the Display Document button.
4. Use your browser's print function to print your document, or its save function to save as a text (.txt) file.

To e-mail search results, follow the procedures described above to mark the documents you are interested in.  Then:

1. Click on the E-Mail link at the top of your screen.
2. Type an e-mail address into the box provided. If you wish, you can add a short note to the body of your e-mail.
3. Click E-Mail.

Top of Page

SEARCH THIS DATABASE

Begin searching LexisNexis Academic Universe.

Still Need Help?  Ask a Librarian!

Database Instructional Guides