Funk Library · University of Illinois · www.library.illinois.edu/funkaces
LexisNexis Academic
Basic Searching
http://wiki.lexisnexis.com/academic/index.php?
tiAbout Lexis-Nexis Academic
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe provides access to documents from over 17,000 legal, business, and news sources. Specifically, it provides full-text articles of law reviews and journals from over 800 publications, federal and state cases and statutes, federal regulations,
over 1,500 legal newspapers, magazines, and newsletters, patents, law school directories,
and case law from foreign countries. It also has detailed financial information on over 80
million public, private, and foreign companies, information on over 57 million executives,
and SEC filings and reports. It also has an extensive coverage of news article. including fulltext articles from over 2,500 newspapers and 1,000 journals and magazines.
Dates of Coverage:
Dates of coverage vary with each publication contained within LexisNexis.
Some of the legal information dates back to 1790.
Access:
From the Funk Library ACES homepage (http://www.library.illinois.edu/
funkaces/), click the “City Planning and Landscape Architecture Reference
and Resource Center” link under the “Collections and Subjects” heading.
Under “Key Databases,” select “LexisNexis Academic.”
**When off campus, log in with your UIUC NetID and password.
Types of searches:
LexisNexis Academic has two general search options: (1) Academic Search
and (2) Advanced.
**For tips on Advanced searching within LexisNexis, see the handout titled “LexisNexis Academic — Advanced Searching.”
Academic Search
Academic Search is the most basic and prominent method to search within Lexis-Nexis, excellent for beginning your research and finding general
resources. The search box searches four major group files simultaneously,
including:
(1) Newspapers (domestic and international)
(2) Law Reviews
(3) Company Profiles
(4) Federal and State Cases
Hot Topics Links
Located below the main search bar, this feature allows you to find recent
news articles for current events with a single click. See today’s front page
news stories from around the world by selecting “Today’s Front Page
News” or by choosing a trending topic.
Search the News
Excellent for narrowing your search to a specific source. Search within
specific newspapers (The New York Times or The Guardian), limit to a specific source type (newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc.), and search by topic.
Look Up a Legal
Case
Looking for a specific legal case or several dealing with a similar topic?
Search by citation (347 U.S. 483), parties involved (Roe v. Wade), and by
topic.
Get Company Info
Search for information on over 80 million companies by name (Amazon)
or by ticket (AMZN).
Choosing search terms
1. Choose specific terms
closely related to your research topic.
2. Choose terms that you
might use when discussing your topic with a colleague, including current
jargon.
3. Include synonyms and abbreviations.
4. This search is not case
sensitive.
5. LexisNexis Academic also
finds variant spellings and
forms of a word.
If you need assistance,
contact a
Funk Library librarian!
Phone:
217.333.2416
E-mail:
aceslib@illinois.edu
Hours:
http://www.library.illinois.edu/
Funk/ACES Library · University of Illinois · www.library.illinois.edu/funkaces
Search Tips
Boolean Operators:
To limit results: use the connector AND to find articles with all terms (x AND y)
To broaden results: use OR to find articles with either term (x OR y)
To eliminate certain terms: use NOT to find articles with one term but not the other (x NOT y)
For more Boolean operators and an explanation of Boolean searching within LexisNexis, visit the page at
http://wiki.lexisnexis.com/academic/index.php?title=Boolean_Searching
Truncation / Wildcard symbols
(*) replaces one or zero characters (judge* finds judges, judge, judged)
(!) truncates the end of a word and can add a number of letters to the end of the word string. The “!” must
always come at the end of the search. LexisNexis is unable to process “noise words” such as “the,” “and,”
“of,” etc.
Phrase searching:
Use “quotation marks” around words to identify exact phrases (e.g. “health care”). Use “quotation marks”
around a single word to identify exact spellings (for example, “color” to exclude results using “colour”).
Results:
On the results page, you can select to “search within results” by entering keywords that can narrow down
your results. You can also show only citation information, full text, and expanded information. The results
list also highlights within each document the terms that were searched. You can also organize your results
chronologically or by relevance.
Find Full Text, Save and Export Citation, etc.
Find full text:
All articles, cases, and other documents retrieved from LexisNexis can be shown as full-text. Simply click on
the title of the document to retrieve its full-text version.
To save, print, email, export, cite, or
tag an abstract:
From the search results page, in the upper right corner you can click on a number of icons, including download, email, or export bibliographic references. You may also print, save, and email summaries and abstracts.
Help
Lexis-Nexis Help:
For more information, click on the “Help?” button at the top right corner of any page. Or click on the
“Tools” sidebar on the main search page to access the latest changes to LexisNexis, video tutorials, and
research guides.
Find Help
LexisNexis Academic also has a beneficial Help page with a number of tips and tricks. Visit the Help page
here: http://wiki.lexisnexis.com/academic/index.php?title=Academic#
Ask a Librarian!
For more ‘Help’ contact Funk Library at 217-333-2416, OR just Ask A Librarian !
This guide is available online at: http://www.library.illinois.edu/export/funkaces/handouts/LexEZ.pdf
Updated 6/18/2014 by DH; rev/ 8/26/2014 ma