Finding Newspaper Articles in LexisNexis

Course code: Sociology 1A06
Course name: Introduction to Sociology
Course date: Fall 2010 - Winter 2011

To do a quick search:

• in the "Search the News" section, next to "Search For", type the words or phrases you want to find
• use ! as a wildcard to retrieve all the different word endings, e.g.: type teen! to retrieve teen, teens, teenager, and teenagers
• use "and" between concepts
• example: teen! and media and body image
• if the country of origin of the articles isn't important, leave "By Source Type" at the default setting, "Major World Publications" -- "full-text news sources from around the world which are held in high esteem for their content reliability"

To limit to Canadian newspapers:

• in the left navigation menu, click "Sources" > "Browse Sources"
  • for #1, pick "Publication Type"
  • for #2
    • "Filter by: Country" -- choose "Canada"
    • "Topics" -- choose "General News Sources"
  • for #3, click "News" and choose "Newspapers"
• put a tick mark beside any or all newspapers that you want to search and click "OK - Continue"
• if you want all Canadian newspapers in the list, tick just "Canadian Newspapers"

To limit to United States newspapers:

in the left navigation menu, click "News" > "All News"

• in the "Select Source" > "By Type", choose "US Newspapers & Wires" 

"Power Search" (Canadian newspapers):

use ! as a wildcard to retrieve all the different word endings, e.g.: type teen! to retrieve teen, teens, teenager, and teenagers

• use "and" to connect different concepts, parentheses and "or" to connect synonyms
• example: (teen! or youth or adolescent!) and (media or advertis!) and body image

• if you use the "Natural Language" option
  • type a question, a sentence, or a few descriptive terms
  • use quotation marks for an exact phrase
  • do not use the wildcard character !
  • example: how does advertising affect the body image of adolescents?

to specify a date range

beside "Specify Date", choose "Date is between..." and type your date range

• to add a Subject index term, if desired
  • beside "Add Index Terms" click "Subject" and pick one of the broad or narrow subjects listed
  • the plus signs beside each term open a list of narrower terms
  • example: "Society, Social Assistance & Lifestyle" > "Social Assistance & Welfare" > "Temporary Shelters" > "Women's Shelters"
• if desired, use "Add Section Search" to search within a section, e.g. headline, geographic region, etc.

"All News Search" (US newspapers):

use ! as a wildcard to retrieve all the different word endings, e.g.: type teen! to retrieve teen, teens, teenager, and teenagers

• for synonyms, combine with parentheses and "or" on a single line, e.g. (teen! or youth or adolescent!)

if you get too many results, or the results aren't relevant, change the dropdowns from "Everywhere" to "Headline & Lead" or "At Least 5 Occurrences"

• to specify a date range, beside "Specify Date", choose "Date is between..." and type your date range

On the results screen

• sort by "Relevance" to bring the most relevant articles to the top
• use "Search within results" (on the right) to narrow your results by including additional words or phrases
• use "Result Groups" (on the left) to narrow your results by subject, geography, language, etc.
  • Note: narrowing by geography finds articles about a region, not necessarily published in a region