Using Lexis-Nexis Academic

Description

Lexis-NexisTM Academic offers the full-text of major regional, national, and international newspapers with coverage spanning, in some cases, over ten years. It also covers industry and trade publications in many different areas. Lexis-Nexis Academic is a subscription database that can be accessed by authorized OSU users either on or off-campus.

How to use this tutorial

OSU Libraries recommends that you either print this tutorial and use it in conjunction in searching Lexis-Nexis Academic, or to open a new browser window (go to File, then select New and Window) and use Lexis-Nexis Academic while keeping this page open for instructions.

Topics

Accessing Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe

  1. To access this database, follow these steps:
  2. Begin from the OSU Libraries' webpage
  3. Select the "Databases" link
  4. Click on "L" to retrieve a list of of databases beginning with the letter "L"
  5. Off-campus users will be asked to input their OSU ID number

Selecting a Database

LexisNexis Academic hompage

In the left hand column are the three research modules offered by Lexis-Nexis. Besides news information (through Academic Universe), you also have access to Federal legislative information through Congressional Universe, and economic, educational, and population statistics through Statistical Universe.

Database choices within Academic Universe (in the right hand column) correlate to information content. If you desire current event and issue-oriented information from newspapers, select the News database. If you seek business, industry, and economic information from business, trade, and financial publications, select the Business database.

This tutorial will rely on the News module for its examples.
LexisNexis Academic News module

The left hand column will let you navigate through Academic Universe's other offerings without having to use the back button.

In the right hand column, select General News to search major newspapers over a large time span. Today's News will only search through the current day's stories. Use U.S. News if you wish to focus on state or regional newspapers. World News will search major US and international newspapers.

If you think that a topic may have been covered in a national news broadcast or weekly show (60 Minutes, for example), Transcripts can be another valuable database to search.

Quick News Search

After selecting a database option, the quick news search interface comes up by default. Use this interface if you wish to search a number of newspapers or other publications at once. This search can only go back 2 years.

Basic search options

Terms included in the first search box - Keyword - will search the headline and lead paragraphs of articles.

Terms within the second search box will search the full-text that remains.

In the Source pull-down window, you may click on your choice of publication types. Unless you have specific publications in mind, it is best to leave it set at "Major Newspapers."

Your last option is Date. Consider the currency of the information that you are seeking and the likelihood of when stories might appear.

Guided News Search

The guided news search interface is most valuable when looking up specific articles or going back longer than 2 years. If you have an idea of when an article may have been published, and the name of the newspaper in which it appeared, you might try the guided interface to retrieve it.

Guided Search options

Terms in any of the top three text boxes will search the following options (use the pull-menu to set the option): Headline; Headline and Lead Paragraph; Full-text; Caption; and Author. You must fill in the first text box at least.

The Source and Date options operate exactly as they do in the basic search interface.

If you have the name of a particular publication in which a desired article appeared, enter in the bottom text box next to "Search this publication title:".

Guided Search Example

Guided Search example Suppose you are searching for the New York Times article "Trying to stem emissions, U.S. sees its goal fading," published in November 1995.
  1. Enter the title (or headline) in the first input field.
  2. In the Date option, specify a range from 11/01/95 to 11/31/95.
  3. Enter "New York Times" in the last input field.

Help

For more information, contact the Valley Library Reference Desk, 541-737-7295 or . A knowledgeable librarian will be happy to assist you with your searching.