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Westlaw Campus Research

General Search Tutorial

General Search Tips

NU users have access to all subscribed content within Westlaw Campus Research. Any document selected that falls outside our subscription will be marked Out of Plan.

In Westlaw, you can conduct searches in natural language or by using Boolean terms and connectors. 

Boolean Operators and Connectors

  • & -  symbol for AND operator. Connects keywords together. 
    • Example: criminal & procedure
  • /s - specifies that the terms appear in the same sentence.
    • criminal /s procedure
  • +s - specifies that the first term must precede the second term within the same sentence.
    • criminal +s procedure
  • /p - specifies that the terms appear in the same paragraph. 
    • criminal /p procedure
  • +p - specifies that the first term must precede the second term within the same paragraph.
    • criminal +p procedure
  • /n  - specifies that search terms need to appear within a specified number of terms of each other.
    • breach /5 contract
  • +n - specifies that the first term must precede the second term by no more than the specified number of terms.
    • Ruth +3 Ginsberg
  • ! - symbol for root expander that searches for multiple endings.
    • object! retrieves object, objected, objection, and objecting. 
  • * - symbol for searching for words with variable characters.
    • withdr*w retrieves withdraw and withdrew. 
  • % - symbol for BUT NOT; excludes documents that contain the terms typed after this connector.
    • damages % negligence

 

 

Basic Search

Using the search box located at the top of the page, type your search terms. Westlaw understands natural language and Boolean searches. 

Before conducting the search, users have the option of selecting the jurisdiction. You can select a particular state or federal court. If there is no preference in jurisdiction, selecting 'All States' and 'All Federal' allows you to search every court. 

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Conducting a basic search allows you to search all content.

A search for (due /2 diligence) /s contract produced the following results. You can search within any of the categories for your specified legal information needs. Please see the section on Results and Search History to learn more about reviewing and narrowing down your results. 

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