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Finding Legal Articles on LexisNexis Academic
Contents
This is an overview of using LexisNexis Academic for finding articles from
law reviews⁄legal journals. To learn about features not discussed here,
and for help and advice specific to your research, speak to a
reference librarian
or call 415.422.6773.
Coverage and Content
Since 1995, LexisNexis Academic has covered most law reviews and almost all of their articles.
Between 1982 and 1995, LexisNexis Academic covers some articles from some law reviews.
If you are researching a legal topic that could have been written about before 1995,
we recommend that you also look for articles using LegalTrac or Index to Legal Periodicals.
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Access
LexisNexis Academic is available to researchers using USF campus libraries,
and to current, non-law USF students, faculty, and staff using remote logins.
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Login
Follow the Connect to
LexisNexis Academic link at http://www.usfca.edu/library/databases/academicuniv.html.
(Follow the remote access instructions if you are logging in from off campus.)
Once you have logged on to LexisNexis Academic, click the "Legal" button
on the red "Search" bar on the top, left-hand side of the screen.
By default you will come to the "Law Reviews" search form.
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Search Options
The search form lets you choose either "Terms and Connectors" (Boolean) or
"Natural Language" searching. It also lets you search for articles when you know
the title of the article, the author of the article, the title of the journal, or the exact
article citation.
Once you run a search, you can also use the "Narrow Search" text box at the top
right-hand side of the results screen to search within your initial search results.
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Display of results
Your search results are displayed 25 citations at a time. There are five display options:
List (the default display) — Shows the title, date, author and citation of the articles.
The default is by title of journal and then reverse chronological order for Terms and Connectors,
and by relevance for Natural Language.
You can change the default order by selecting either "Publication Date" or
"Relevance" from the "Sort" pull-down menu at the top of the result list. Expanded List
— A list that also shows your search terms with the words immediately surrounding them. KWIC (Key Words In Context) — Shows your search terms in the context of the sentences or
paragraphs they are in. This display option shows only one article at a time. Full — Shows the entire text of an article. Custom — Lets you pick what portions of each article to display.
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Printing, E-mailing & Downloading
To print an entire article, view it with the "Full" display, then use the
Print, Email, or Download icons on the top, right-hand side of the screen. To print
selected articles, switch to the "List" view, mark the desired articles,
then select the Print, Email, or Download icon.
To print selected citations, tag the citations you want, then select the Print, Email, or
Download icon. In the next window, under "Document View," select "List" or
"Expanded List" from the pull-down menu.
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Limiting by Date
You can use the "Specify Date" section at the bottom of the search form
to limit your search to a specific date, a range of dates, or a certain period of time
from the present (e.g., previous year, previous 5 years).
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Specific Searches Useful for Legal Research
Terms & Connectors Key Word Search
At the search form, select "Terms and Connectors," and enter any keywords,
e.g.,
copyright
"enemy combatant"
"casino gambling" and nevada
mafia w/s teamsters
Use ! to retrieve all forms of a word (e.g., harass!). (Regular plurals are
retrieved automatically.)
You can search for keywords in proximity using, for example, w/p to look for words in
the same paragraph or w/s to look for words in the same sentence.
Natural Language Search
At the search form, select "Natural Language," and enter any search terms, e.g.,
digital music copyright infringement
You can use the "Required Terms" text box to specify that
certain terms show up in the documents your search retrieves.
Title Search
At the search form, enter the title in quotation marks (e.g., "taming congress's power
under the commerce clause") in the "Title of Article" text box.
Author Search
At the search form, enter the author's name (e.g., mary pre/3 whisner - or -
lawrence pre/3 tribe - or - richard pre/3 posner) in the "Author" text box.
Case Name Search
At the search form, enter the name of the case as keywords in a Terms and Connectors search, e.g.,
lochner
"ex parte quirin"
"roe v. wade"
To narrow your results, ask to retrieve only articles that use the case name at
least a certain number of times. Enter a Terms and Connectors search like this in the
"Enter Search Terms" text box:
atleast3(lochner)
atleast5("ex parte quirin")
atleast10("roe v. wade")
Statute Search
At the search form, enter the statute as keywords in a Terms and Connectors search, e.g.,
"digital millennium copyright act"
"title vii"
"42 u.s.c. pre/2 1983"
Limiting by Jurisdiction:
Searching for articles about specific jurisdictions (e.g., states or countries) is not effective
on LexisNexis Academic. If possible, use the web versions of Index to
Legal Periodicals or LegalTrac.
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Go to Finding Law Review Articles
Go to Law Library Research Guides
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