ACADEMIC UNIVERSE (LEXIS-NEXIS) HELPSHEET
To open Lexis-Nexis:
- From the DeVry Library homepage, click on "Library Databases."
- From the list of databases, click on "Enter Academic Universe" under the VALE link.
If accessing off campus, you need the password available at the library.
To search for articles:
- There are five areas to choose from. Choose one of the links
below that will most likely contain your search topic.
- If you click on News the next screen will be displayed:
- Again choose one of the links that is likely to have information on your search topic.
The next screen will display a Basic Search screen such as the one below:
- In the search field enter keywords or phrases and then click on the Search button.
Use the drop down fields to refine or limit your search. Refer to the Examples when
wording your search terms. The next screen will display your Documents List:
To Display/Print/Save:
There are four formats in which you can view the results of your LexisNexis Academic Universe search:
Document List (default format), Expanded List,
Full, and KWIC (Key Words In Context) format.
The KWIC format helps you quickly determine whether a document is applicable
to your research topic. When viewing an individual document in the Full
or KWIC format, print it or save it to your disk by doing the following:
- Click Print/Save Options.
- Click Display Document.
- Use your browser’s print or save commands.
When viewing your results in the Document List or
Expanded List format, print it or save your results to disk by doing the following:
- Click Print/Save Options.
- Click the button next to either All Citations
or Just These Citations. Note: If you select
Just These Citations, then enter your document numbers in the text box.
- Select the format you want from the Format of Results drop-down list.
- Click Display Citations.
- Use your browser’s print or save commands.
- After printing or saving your document, click your browser’s Back button to return to the Print/Save page.
Then click Return to Document to redisplay your Academic Universe search results page.
Tips: (these tips are taken from LexisNexis’ Help screens).
- You can narrow your search to retrieve only relevant articles.
Once you have entered a search and retrieved a large number of articles, there are two ways
to narrow down your search results:
- If you know some additional search terms that you would like your answer set to include,
click on the FOCUS search button. The FOCUS feature allows you to work with your result
set only, rather than running a new search. Enter search terms in the FOCUS box, and only
articles from your original answer set that also contains these terms will be retrieved.
- If you would like to run your search again, using more specific fields such as Headline,
Author or Publication Title, click on Edit Search and choose the Guided Search form.
From there, you can tailor your search terms and date restrictions to provide a smaller answer set.
- Certain common words cannot be searched by the LexisNexis services.
These are called noise words. Noise words vary by source. Replace the noise word with a space when
entering your search. While we cannot provide a list of all noise words, here are the most common ones:
the, and, of , his, my, when, there, is, are, so, or, it
- Use the asterisk (*) to replace a letter or letters in a word. You can use more than one asterisk
in a word and you can use it anywhere in a word except as the first letter.
For example:
bernst**n--finds the ei or ie spelling of the name
wom*n--finds woman and women
bank***--finds any word beginning with bank and
that has no more than three letters after the k; will pick up banker and banking,
but will not pick up bankrupt or bankruptcy.
- Use the exclamation mark (!) to replace an infinite number of letters following a word root. You can use
only one exclamation mark in a word and it must be at the end of the word root.
For example:
litigat!--finds variations of the word litigate (litigator, litigated, litigation, litigating)
Note: Words that work best are those that are unique in their truncated form. For
example, if you search for fir! (thinking that you want to find "fired", "firing", or "fires"), your results will also include "first",
"firm", and so on.
- If you see a summary of an article you like, but the article is not available you can ask a librarian to order
it for you through interlibrary loan (takes about a week).
- If you do not get satisfactory results from one search, do not hesitate to reword your search terms or
ASK A LIBRARIAN for assistance.