ENSP 330: Introduction to Environmental law

Nexis Uni Search Strategies

Use the following search strategies to retrieve relevant articles when using Nexis Uni.

• Truncation: The asterisk (*) searches for a string of characters, no matter how the word ends.

• Phrase searching: Use quotation marks or hyphens to search for an exact phrase, instead of a single word.

• Operators:

  • "And": For some topics using "and" between words is the best search strategy. You may end up with a large number of results and some may not be relevant.

  • "/s": limits keywords to the same sentence.

  • "/p": limits keywords to the same paragraph.

  • "hlead": limits keywords to the headline and lead paragraphs

Once you are in a document, you can use "Search Document" or click on the "All Terms" box at the top of the screen, or ctrl-F to view how many times and where your keywords appear.

Too many results? Try:

• limiting by date
• adding more keywords
• searching within results
  • Try searching "legal theory"

Examples:

Using the topic, "Does the Migratory Bird Treaty Act apply only to intentional actions only or does it apply to incidental actions as well?", enter the following examples into the database and see how your results change with each search.

1. "migratory bird treaty"
   • This searches migratory bird treaty as a phrase, instead of migratory and bird and treaty as separate words.
2. "migratory bird treaty" and incidental
   • This search links the keyword units.
3. "migratory bird treaty" /s incidental
   • This search finds migratory bird treaty within the same sentence as incidental.
4. (incidental OR intentional) /p "migratory bird treaty"
   • This search finds incidental or intentional within the same paragraph as migratory bird treaty.
5. hlead ("migratory bird treaty" and incidental)
   • This search finds migratory bird treaty and incidental within the headline or lead paragraphs of articles.

HeinOnline Search Strategies

Use the following search strategies to retrieve relevant articles when using HeinOnline Law Journal Library.

• Only the first box defaults to search the "Text" field. Change the other boxes' search fields to Text.

• Truncation (aka wildcard searching): The asterisk (*) searches for a string of characters, no matter how the word ends.

• Phrase searching: Use quotation marks or hyphens to search for an exact phrase, instead of a single word.

• Operators / proximity searching :

  • "AND": For some topics using "AND" between words is the best search strategy. You may end up with a large number of results and some may not be relevant. AND must be capitalized.

  • "w/s" or "/s": limits keywords to the same sentence

  • "w/p" or "/p": limits keywords to the same paragraph.

  • To get your keywords closer together in your results, change the connector from "AND" to "Within 5," "Within 10," or "Within 25."

Too many results? Try:

• limiting by date
• adding more keywords
• On the results page use "Section Type" to limit to articles, legislation, cases, etc.

Examples:

Using the topic, "Does the Migratory Bird Treaty Act apply only to intentional actions only or does it apply to incidental actions as well?", enter the following examples into the database and see how your results change with each search.

1. "migratory bird treaty"
   • This searches migratory bird treaty as a phrase, instead of migratory and bird and treaty as separate words.
2. "migratory bird treaty" and incidental
   • This search links the keyword units.
3. "migratory bird treaty" /s incidental
   • This search finds migratory bird treaty within the same sentence as incidental.
4. (incidental OR intentional) /p "migratory bird treaty"
   • This search finds incidental or intentional within the same paragraph as migratory bird treaty.
5. "migratory bird treaty" within 10 incidental
   • This search finds migratory bird treaty and incidental within ten words of each other.

Search Strategies:

• On the homepage, select Secondary Sources. On the next page, you can select "Law Reviews and Journals."

• Truncation: The exclamation mark (!) searches for a string of characters, no matter how the word ends.

• Phrase searching: Use quotation marks or hyphens to search for an exact phrase, instead of a single word.

• Operators:

  • "And": For some topics using "and" between words is the best search strategy. You may end up with a large number of results and some may not be relevant.

  • "/s": limits keywords to the same sentence.

  • "/p": limits keywords to the same paragraph.

Examples:

Using the topic, "Does the Migratory Bird Treaty Act apply only to intentional actions only or does it apply to incidental actions as well?", enter the following examples into the database and see how your results change with each search.

1. "migratory bird treaty"
   • This searches migratory bird treaty as a phrase, instead of migratory and bird and treaty as separate words.
2. "migratory bird treaty" and incidental
   • This search links the keyword units.
3. "migratory bird treaty" /s incidental
   • This search finds migratory bird treaty within the same sentence as incidental.
4. (incidental OR intentional) /p "migratory bird treaty"
   • This search finds incidental or intentional within the same paragraph as migratory bird treaty.