Search Commands and Connectors

Lexis

Search Commands

and Connectors

Common Legal Phrases

The Lexis service automatically recognizes many common legal

phrases, e.g., limited liability partnership, summary judgment, and

search and seizure. However, if you want to be sure any phrase you’re

searching is recognized, enclose it in quotation marks, i.e., ENTER:

“right to work.”

When More Than One Connector is Used …

Lexis acts

on the connectors in this order:

• OR

• Proximity connectors (W/n, /p, near/n, etc. See next page.) from

the smallest to the largest number value

• AND (You can use & instead of AND, except in legal phrases.)

• AND NOT or BUT NOT

For example, you ENTER: bankrupt! /25 discharg!

AND student OR

college OR education! /5 loan.

First, Lexis creates a unit of student OR college OR education!. Next

Lexis joins loan with student OR college OR education! to create a

unit. Then bankrupt! /25 discharg! is joined to create a second unit.

Finally AND (or &) operates last, joining the two created units.

Lexis Automatically Interprets

Search Commands

Just enter your words and commands in the Lexis Search Box, e.g.,

ENTER: drone and commercial W/10 deliver!. Commands are not

case-sensitive, i.e., enter AND, And or and.

Broaden W/N Connectors

While a Lexis search ignores certain “noise words” added to your

search, it counts all words in results documents for the purpose

of determining proximity. So broaden your W/n connector. In

other words, consider W/10 instead of W/5. For W/p and W/s,

consider W/75 or W/25 respectively.

Let the Advanced Search Help You

For help selecting connectors, select the Advanced Search link

below the Search Box to access Advanced Search forms, which

provide fields that help you use the right connector.

The Lexis

service lets you use advanced search commands. If you’re comfortable using search

commands and connectors—! and * to truncate words and W/n, OR, AND,

&, etc., to connect search

words and phrases—you can use these special commands to develop Lexis searches. Here’s what

you need to know:

Here’s an overview of Lexis commands:

Command/Connector Overview

Child! 

nds child, children, childless, childish, etc. Used after word endings only. The word requires

a minimum of three characters for the wildcard to be applied. Find the word root plus an unlimited

number of additional characters.

Note: Lexis automatically finds common plural words, i.e., ending in s, es and ies.

When used as a sufx: Bank* is the same as Bank! The ! and * are equivalents. They will both replace

0 or more characters when used with a three-character or more word root. Search results for bank*

include bank, banks, banking, banker and bankruptcy.

Lars??

Bank???

The industry standard ? replaces one character. For example, Lars?? nds Larsen and

Larson. And Bank??? will nd bank, banked, banker and banking but not bankrupt or

bankruptcy.

physician OR doctor

Lexis finds documents with either word or both words.

AND (or &)

bank* AND deregulat!

bank* & deregulat!

Lexis finds documents with BOTH words only. Words can be ANYWHERE

in the

same document, not necessarily close in context. When entering legal phrases that

contain AND, e.g., “cease and desist order,” use “and” because Lexis is reading the

phrase literally.

Proximity Connectors:

W/n or near/n disparate W/10 impact or disparate near/10 impact or disparate +10 impact

(Use a number with W/n or near/n)

PRE/n or ONEAR/n

+n, +s, +p

cable PRE/1 tv OR television or cable ONEAR/1 tv OR television

(The rst word must precede the second within a specic number of words.)

W/p or /p

W/s or /s

W/seg or /seg

Converts to W/75

Converts to W/25

Converts to W/100

NOT W/n or NOT /n disparate NOT W/10 impact nds documents where disparate is not within 10 words of

impact. (Use a number with NOT W/n.)

AND NOT or %

or BUT NOT

rico AND NOT puerto or rico % puerto or

rico BUT NOT puerto

Lexis finds documents with “rico.” Documents with any mention of “puerto” —

anywhere in the document—will not be retrieved.

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Command/Connector Overview

Special Commands:

ATLEASTn

You must use a number and search words in parentheses with ATLEASTn.

ENTER: atleast5(obama AND putin AND oil) and a Lexis search will find documents with at

least five mentions of each search word. Y

ou can use the OR and AND connectors with

ATLEASTn. You cannot use proximity connectors like W/n with ATLEASTn.

ALLCAPS

allcaps(AIDS)

You must use search words in parentheses with ALLCAPS.

ENTER: allcaps(AIDS) and your Lexis search will find news documents with references to

“

AIDS” the acronym and ACQUIRED IMMUNODEFICIENCY SYNDROME but not “aids”

the verb.

NOTE: The ALLCAPS command works with news content searches only.

NOCAPS

nocaps(aids)

You must use search words in parentheses with NOCAPS.

ENTER: nocaps(aids) and your Lexis search will find news documents with

references to “aids” the verb but not “AIDS” the acronym.

NOTE: The NOCAPS command works with news content searches only.

CAPS

caps(Rico)

CAPS nds words with initial caps, e.g., proper nouns.

You must use search words in parentheses with CAPS.

ENTER: caps(Rico) and your Lexis search will find news documents with references to

“Puerto Rico” but not references to the “RICO Act.

”

NOTE: The CAPS command works with news content searches only.