Legal Resources- Comparative study of Connectors/ Symbols/ Commands : a resource guide

Legal research is an important skill for the lawyers. JGU being India’s first global law school is committed to impart legal education to its student.

Following the motto of the institution this resource guide has been compiled by the team members of Global Library under guided supervision of the Library Director, Mr Buddhi Prakash Chauhan. This resource guide is intended to support in Legal Research as a proper research strategy and pre-research planning which plays an important factor in legal research. This guide will prove to a quick reference and will bring out a clarity to refine the search strings used during the exploration through the prominent Legal databases i.e. Lexis Advance, Westlaw, HeinOnline, Manupatra and SCC Online.

Today’s legal researchers are expected to know how and when to use print and electronic sources. Perhaps the fundamental step is to identify the fact, figures and understand the analysis of various legal documents that gives rise to research in legal domain. The legal exploration relies on the purpose to find legal documents which aids in finding a solution to a legal problem. The key to effective legal research is to develop a good research tactic by following an effective approach. This research guide will be helpful to understand the different Connectors/ Symbols/ Command used in Legal Research.

Locates document with either or both words	either "OR" or a space between two words	or	or / + The + (or required) operator dictates that the term after the + symbol MUST exist somewhere in a single document	OR		Teacher or Professor Teacher OR Professor +Student	The search retrieves either "teacher" or "professor" or both
Use NOT to exclude term(s) from your search results.	AND NOT / % / BUT NOT	But not or %	NOT			NOT			The search retrieves higher education NOT community colleges
Name of the operator	Function	Lexis Advance	Westlaw	HeinOnline	Manupatra	SCC		Example		Retrieves document
Phrase Search	use quotes to search for a phrase	“ ”	“ ”	“ ”	“ ”	“ ”		"love canal"		will search for documents containing the exact phrase "love canal"
Proximity Search Or Grammatical Connectors & Numerical Connectors	Locates documents with two terms in the same paragraph	/p	/p The search will retrieve the first term preceding the second within the same paragraph: "right +p counsel"	w/p or /p	/p			Wrongful /p death		The search retrieves the words "wrongful" and "death" in the same paragraph
	Locates documents with one word within a number of words of the other	/n (value of "n" can be any number up to 255)	/n The search will retrieve the first term preceding the second by "n" terms (where "n" is a number): "capital +3 punishment"	/# Jury /5 discrimination	Select the option -NEAR EACH OTHER	NEAR compensation NEAR “land acquisition”		patent /10 infringement		The search retrieves the word "patent" within ten words of the word infringement
Name of the operator	Function	Lexis Advance	Westlaw	HeinOnline	Manupatra	SCC		Example		Retrieves document
Grammatical Connectors	Locates documents with terms in the same sentence	/s	/s The search will retrieve the first term preceding the second within the same sentence: "burden +s proof"	w/s or /s	“corporate tax ”/s	NEAR		Wrongful /s death		The search retrieves the words "wrongful" and "death" in the same sentence
Universal Character	Replace one or more Characters	*	*	*	*city will match city, capacity, complexity, specificity	brief*		mn* col*r finds not only color and colour, but hundreds of other words.		The search retrieves with the word "man" or "men"
Root Expander	Retrieves word with variant ending	!	!					lend!		The search retrieves with the words "lender" "lending"
Wild Character	To search for words where there may be variations of the word that you want included in your search	? Use one ? for each variable letter.		?	‘?’ will match word, ward *nand? will match Nanda, Nandy, Kesavananda, Gokulananda, Nityananda	?		i.e. te?t , w?rd		The search will produce results that contain text or test. Word or ward
Name of the operator	Function	Lexis Advance	Westlaw	HeinOnline	Manupatra	SCC		Example		Retrieves document
Fuzzy Search	To search for terms similar in spelling to another term. Like proximity searches, fuzzy searches use the tilde symbol as an operator.			~ To search for terms more similar to the word roam than what the default parameter of 0.5 produces: roam~0.8				roam~		This search retrieves the terms like foam and roam
Boosting a term	The caret symbol (^) with a boost factor at the end of the term. The higher the boost factor, the more relevant the boosted term.			(^)				Iroquois Indian and the term Iroquois is more relevant than Indian, boost it using the caret symbol along with a boost factor number next to the term		The search will retrieve term: Iroquois^4 Indian - This search will make the term Iroquois more relevant - Boost phrase terms as in the example: “Iroquois Indian”^4 “Indian Customs” - By default, the boost factor is 1. - Although the boost factor must be positive, it can be less than 1 (for instance, 0.2)
Name of the operator	Function	Lexis Advance	Westlaw	HeinOnline	Manupatra	SCC		Example		Retrieves document
Negative Keyword (Exclusion)	The - (or prohibit) operator excludes documents which contain the term after the - symbol. NOTE: If using special characters in a search, the – must have a space before the special character, but not after.			-	-			To search for documents which contain “watershed planning” but not “watershed system”		The search query will retrieve “watershed planning” -“watershed system”
Turning Off Plurals and Equivalents	Turns off plurals of a particular term by placing the # symbol in front of the term.		#					#child		To retrieve child but not children enter #child. Placing the # symbol in front of a term turns off the automatic retrieval of equivalencies.
Name of the operator	Function	Lexis Advance	Westlaw	HeinOnline	Manupatra	SCC		Example		Retrieves document
Parenthesis	To search grouped clauses to form sub queries	( ) (car or automobile) /p (injury or harm)	( )	( )		()		(water shed or "water rights") AND planning		will produce documents that contain either watershed or water rights and planning
	To match only those documents in which all the keywords specified in your query				@			to find documents with 'corporate', 'tax' and 'law' within 5 words of each other and in the same order as specified, you can use the Ordered Proximity Operator.		"corporate tax law "@5
Contextual Search – Sentence	To match only those documents in which all the keywords specified in your query appear within a Quotation, you can use the Contextual Search within Quotation.				/q			"corporate tax law"/q
	You can mix Contextual and Proximity Search if you would like specify the scope (Para, Sentence, Quote) as well as the distance of search keywords.				/s @s /p @p			"corporate tax law"/s "corporate tax law"@s "corporate tax law"/p "corporate tax law"@p
Name of the operator	Function	Lexis Advance	Westlaw	HeinOnline	Manupatra		SCC Online		Example	Retrieves document
Boolean Operator	Locates two search terms in a document	AND or &	&	AND	There is no need to input "AND" or "OR" between keyword. Search will automatically take care of all these thing. First, Search will try and look for documents that match all the words and will display them and if none is found, it will look for documents that match any of the keywords.		AND		probate and damages	The search retrieves both "probate" and "damages"

Search form

Legal Resources- Comparative study of Connectors/ Symbols/ Commands : a resource guide

You are here