On the library's home page, click the Databases tab.
Then, select LexisNexis Academic from the list of Frequently Used Databases.
Note the scope of information in this database.
We are going to focus on only one part of the database--the news sources.
Click the title to enter the database.
These six search engines will focus your search in various ways.
You can do an easy search of news resources here, in the Search the News search engine. However, there is a more sophisticated search engine that will allow you to control your search much more effectively than with this easy search.
Click All News (just above the Go button).
This brings you to a more advanced search engine. To give you an idea of how to use this search engine, let's find out what was being reported about the immediate impact of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 specifically on New York.
In the first text box at the top, type world trade center; in the second text box type attack. Notice the drop-down menus to the right of each text box. Click one of them. LexisNexis allows you to search different fields within the database record for a more precise search. Notice also the drop-downs to the left of the second and third text boxes. Click one of these. These include both Boolean and proximity operators to help you control your search results.
Open the drop-down menu by Specify Date and select Date is... Type 09/12/2001.
From the drop-down menu by Select Source: By Type, select Major World Publications.
For Article Type, select Editorials and Opinion.
And for Article Location, choose New York.
Now, click the red Search button.
You see a list of brief records. The titles (or headlines) are hyperlinked. To read an article, simply click the title. Open the first article on your list, and you will see your search terms highlighted in red. This highlighting allows you to quickly determine the context in which the terms are being used. This will help you in judging the relevance of this article to your research.
Go back to the results list by clicking Results List at the top of the frame.
A few things about what you see on this screen:
The left column shows you a breakdown of the articles by type and by publication title. Clicking Subject will produce a list of subject terms used by this database as its controlled vocabulary. These terms can be used as hyperlinks or incorporated into keyword string searches.
Above the results list are two drop-down menus. Show is used to change the look of the list. Sort changes the way the list is arranged. The Search within results text box enables you to narrow your results list by adding more search terms. (To see which of these articles compared the 9/11 attacks to the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, type pearl harbor into the text box and click Go.)
To save an article, select it by clicking the check box to the left of the article. Once selected, an article can be printed, emailed, or saved to your computer or storage device. Just click one of the icons on the far right, above the results list.
Now that you have a basic understanding of LexisNexis, you will want to use it for any research to do with current affairs and developing topics. The information in LexisNexis is loaded each day, making this one of the most up-to-date databases available.
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