LexisNexis Help

Tutorials

• LexisNexis Tutorials
  These tutorials and handouts are from LexisNexis, and somewhat general.

Searching Sources

• Learn how to search a specific source in LexisNexis
  Just want to search the Village Voice, but don’t know where it lives in LexisNexis?
• Learn how to search a group of sources in LexisNexis
  Want to search entertainment stories? This shows you how.
• Learn how to search sources by state in LexisNexis

LexisNexis Commands
(A shortcut list from LexisNexis is available here: LexisNexis Commands)

!
Ex. immigra! finds immigrant, immigrants, immigration, etc.

W/2
Ex. immigrants w/2 (new york)
Finds any articles that include both the words immigrants and new york within two words of each other. Good for increasing relevancy. NOTE: you can use any number (w/2, w/12, etc.)
Especially useful when searching for names that may have different variants. ex. (Hillary w/2 Clinton will find Hillary Clinton, Hillary R. Clinton, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

atleast5
Ex. atleast5 (barack obama)
Finds articles where the phrase/name “barack obama” occurs at least 5 times; the idea here is that if the name occurs at least 5 times, hopefully the article is about him instead of just including random mentions of his name. NOTE: you can use any number (atleast2, atleast10, etc.)

A complete list of search connectors is available here.

Searching within Document Sections (Byline, Body, etc.)
Want to just search for articles by a specific writer (byline)? Just interested in seeing results from the headlines?
Here’s a video that shows two different ways to search by section: LexisNexis: Searching by Document Section

Searching Sections
Want to search for your terms in a section of a story? Use these shortcuts below in your search.
TIP: A great way to increase relevancy is to search for your terms in the headline or the hlead (headline, lead paragraph)

Ex: headline(barack obama)
headline
hlead
body
lead
byline
length (length should be used with a >, =, or< sign.)