You want to retrieve documents that contain any of the following terms: dog, canine, German Shepherd.
Is this search correctly formatted?
dog OR canine OR “german shepherd”
YES
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To avoid having to remember Westlaw/Lexis differences, you can follow these three rules so your searches will work on both systems.
1. Type in ORs between alternative terms (dog OR canine)
2. Type phrases in quotation marks (“police dog”)
3. Type nouns in the singular (dog)
The answer is TRUE.
If you follow these three rules your searches will work on either system.
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You want to retrieve documents about a dog or canine or German Shepherd biting or scratching.
dog OR canine OR “german shepherd” /S bite OR scratch
Is this search correctly formatted?
The search is NOT correctly formulated. The verbs need to be truncated. Expanders should be used.
Correctly Formulated Search
dog OR canine OR “german shepherd” /S bit! OR scratch!
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You want to retrieve documents about summary judgment and a dog or canine or German Shepherd biting or scratching a fleeing suspect.
dog OR canine OR “german shepherd” /S bit! OR scratch! /P flee! /S suspect AND “summary judgment”
Is this search correctly formatted?
The search is correctly formulated.
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On both Westlaw and Lexis, you truncate terms by putting an ! at the root.
Example: bit! OR scratch!
TRUE
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You want to retrieve documents about a dog or canine or German Shepherd biting or scratching a suspect.
dog OR canine OR “german shepherd” /S bit! OR scratch! /P suspect
Is this search correctly formatted?
YES
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You want to retrieve documents about school liability for a student’s injury or death which occurred while she was running, exercising, or weight lifting.
school /S liab! /P injur! OR death /P exercis! OR run! OR (lift! /5 weight)
Is this search correctly formatted?
YES The search is correctly formulated since there are parentheses around lift! /5 weight.
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An Evaluating Authority question:
Is American Jurisprudence, 2d more authoritative than Ronald Rotunda’s and John Nowak’s Treatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and Procedure?
NO
The treatise – Ronald Rotunda’s and John Nowak’s Treatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and Procedure -is more authoritative than the encyclopedia -American Jurisprudence 2d.
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On Lexis Advance, when running a terms and connectors search, you must enclose phrases such as “summary judgment” or “res ipsa loquitur” in quotation marks since spaces between words are interpreted as ORs.
False
But you can do so without a problem so it may be easier to just use ( ) on both Westlaw and Lexis.
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A Google question:
Can you use Google to search another website?
YES
By using Google’s Advanced Search feature you can use Google to search another website.
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The order of operation is the same for both Westlaw and Lexis Advance.
The answer is TRUE. If you follow these three rules your searches will work on either system.
1. Parentheses
2. OR
3. Proximity connectors
4. AND
5. NOT
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On Westlaw, when running a terms and connectors search, you should always type nouns in plural form so you will retrieve both the singular and plural forms.
FALSE On Westlaw, the plural form of a word only retrieves the plural and plural possessive forms.
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You want to retrieve documents that contain all of the following terms: dog, canine, German Shepherd.
dog AND canine OR “german shepherd”
Is this search correctly formatted?
NO The search is NOT correctly formulated. The terms should be separated by ANDs.
THE Correctly Formulated Search
dogs AND canine AND “german shepherd”
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A question about DuckDuckGO.
Which statement is true about DuckDuckGo?
Keeps your search history private.
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You want to retrieve all documents about a pedestrian who is blind, sightless, or has a vision impairment (impairment of vision, vision that is impaired, etc.).
blind! OR sightless OR vision /5 impair! /S pedestrian
Is this search correctly formatted?
NO The search is NOT correctly formulated. There should be parentheses around vision /5 impair!.
The Correctly Formulated Search
blind! OR sightless OR (vision /5 impair!) /S pedestrian
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Please let me know your questions.
