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Nexis Uni™ User Guide: Search Help & New Features

Helpful information about using the new Nexis Uni database

LexisNexis Academic is now Nexis Uni!

Nexis Uni is an exciting new research solution designed with the modern information seeker in mind. It enables quick discovery across all content types, personalized discipline pages for those who set up individual profiles, and a collaborative workspace for group assignments.

This Guide is here to assist you in navigating the new Search Features of Nexis Uni.

Why Register?

ADVANTAGES OF REGISTRATION

The free self-registration option allows users to create a Nexis Uni account by providing their name and email address.Once you have self-registered, you can take advantage of several useful customization features, but you will still also have the option to use Nexis Uni in anonymous mode, if desired.

Some of the features available if you register:

  • Save searches, documents and notes and share them with other users
  • Set up alerts to track new content added to Nexis Uni
  • View search history to provide a quick overview of earlier research
  • Choose to set one of the discipline pages as your Uni home page. 

Nexis Uni Helpsheets

Where can I get more help?

Contact the OSU Libraries Information Desk

Nexis Uni Search Page

COOL NEW FEATURES

  1. Search across ALL content types in a single search, with both natural language AND Boolean searches
  2. Advanced search templates for different categories, including news, company and financial directories, legal content
  3. Filter facets easily applied and removed WITHOUT redoing the search
  4. Annotation and notes features for documents
  5. Reading glasses icon lets you track what results you’ve already viewed
  6. Search History feature
  7. Create folders to save documents from your searches
  8. Share folders with others
  9. Tag your most useful sources
  10. Discipline pages to help begin your research with relevant topics, sources, news and documents (Business, Political Science, Criminal Justice available now; more to come)

Click on Top 10 Features link under Nexis Uni Helpsheets for details!

Still includes all the useful content of LexisNexis Academic:

  • Print and online journals, television and radio broadcasts, newswires, and blogs
  • Local, regional, national & international newspapers
  • Extensive legal sources for federal and state cases (including Supreme Court decisions since 1790)
  • Extensive business information on 80+ million US and international companies

NEWS Search unique features

To limit your news results by a particular language or languages:

  1. Click on the link: Advanced Search from the home page.
  2. Click on News in the Select a Specific Content Type drop down.
  3. Enter the language in the box labeled Classification. Use an OR connector to limit by more than one language (e.g. English OR French).
  4. Add your remaining search terms in the search box or in the Advanced Search form.

To limit your news results to transcripts:

  1. Click on the link Advanced Search from the home page.
  2. Click on News in the Select a Specific Content Type drop down.
  3. Enter transcript in the Publication Type box
  4. Add your remaining search terms in the search box or in the Advanced Search form.

Main Search Box

The main search box on Nexis Uni™ will run both Natural Language and Boolean searches. The search box will initially detect what type of search you are trying to run and run the search accordingly without you having to specify either Natural Language or Boolean.

If you insert terms and connectors or Boolean operators into search, Nexis Uni™ will run the search as a Boolean search. If you do not include any connectors or operators, the search will run as Natural Language.

Natural Language Search

 

The Natural Language search will attempt to analyze the terms in your search to try to understand the intent of your search rather than running the search as a phrase or with an implied connector. For example, running the search: first amendment—without any connectors or quotes—will take you to the text of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution rather than running your search as “first amendment,” first OR amendment, or first AND amendment. Running a search for obamacare will bring you back documents that reference both Obamacare and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010.

To develop a Natural Language search, use terms that you might use when describing your research topic to another person. For example, to find articles about efforts in the fast food industry to use recyclable packaging, you might use this search: What efforts has the fast food industry made to use recyclable packages? Or, you can use just the most important terms and phrases, in any order: recycle package fast food.

Boolean Search

 

The Boolean search allows you to create relationships between or among your search terms by using connectors (ANDOR, etc.) and/or other operators (quotes, wildcards, etc.) The main search box will recognize any Boolean connectors that you enter and automatically run your search as a Boolean search rather than Natural Language.

For a complete list of connectors and operators available for Nexis Uni™ Boolean searching, access the Nexis Uni™ Help and search for “Search Connectors Quick Reference Card.”

The main search box will also recognize segment searches. For example, typing HLEAD(Brexit) in the main search box will target your search to the Headline and Lead Paragraph of a news article. Or CITE (531 US 98) will bring you back the case with that citation.

Other Options for Constructing a Search

Advanced Search Forms

There are a variety of Advanced Search forms available that provide an easy way to construct a segment search targeted to a specific content type (e.g., news, cases) or publication. Select a content type from the Select a Specific Content Type drop down and type your search terms into the relevant segment boxes. The Segment Examples document will show you which parts of each document are parts of which segments.

Task Pods

From the home page, you can create a simple search targeting a particular type of content through the Task Pods. Click on the content type that you want to search and fill in the available options. For example, if you are looking for law review articles about original intent from a particular year, simply type “original intent” in the search box and select a date range and click GO.

Searching for a Specific Term, Document, Case, Etc. 

The main search box in Nexis Uni™ has a word wheel that will suggest documents, legal phrases, or sources based on your entered search terms. Click on a document to go directly to that document or click on the phrase to populate the search box with that recognized phrase.

Search Within Specific Publications

  • You can target your search to a specific publication by 1) typing the publication name in the main search box and 2) selecting the publication that you are interested from the word wheel. This will add it to your search. You can repeat this to add multiple publications to your search.
  • You can also use the All Sources tool (available from the Menu drop down at the top left) to add one or more sources to your search and then run your search right from that page.
  • You can use the Source Filters to narrow the available sources based on content type, jurisdiction, or publisher.
  • You can use the Search Within Sources function to search for relevant sources; this search will search both the title and the description of he publications.
  • You can also use Boolean operators to construct your search (e.g., merger w/3 acquisition to target publications that are related to mergers and acquisitions.
  • You can click the star icon (on the All Sources page or in the Narrow By pane of the main search box) to favorite your publication or set of publications and those favorite publications/collections will be available under Recent & Favorites within the Narrow By pane.

What Happened To...

Market and Industry Reports?

In the old LexisNexis - Companies, we were able to choose "Market and Industry Reports" as a topic for searching. This is still possible in Nexis Uni

On either the Home page or the Business Discovery page (a box found under Discover Topics),

  1. click on Advanced Search under the Search box
  2. enter your search terms in the new Search box
  3. under Select a specific content type next to it find Company and Financial
  4. under that click on Analyst Reports. Then do your search!

SEC Filings?

On the Advanced Search page, choose SEC Filings from the dropdown. In the old LexisNexis, you could click a box for any or all of the SEC filings such as Annual Reports, Proxy Statements, or various forms; in the new Nexis Uni, you must type in the form type in the box under Document Segments/Fields

Landmark Cases?

These can now be found on the Criminal Justice Discovery page as "Landmark Supreme Court Cases." There's also a new News box here that might be of interest: University News