Sourcing relevant results from your research is a skill you should invest the time to develop.
The first step is to identify the search words from the assignment topic.
Once you have your search words, create a table of synonyms.
The legal databases are literal - they only search for the words you include in your search.
Once you have created the table of synonyms, create word sets of the synonyms, then string these together using Boolean Connectors.
Example, researching yellow cars
Step 1: Identify search words: yellow cars
Step 2: Create table of synonyms
yellow |
cars |
| gold | automobile |
| lemon | car |
| yellow | vehicle |
Step 3: Create word sets of synonyms
(gold OR lemon OR yellow)
(automobile OR car OR vehicle)
Step 4: Create search strings
A simple search string uses the Boolean Connector AND: (gold OR lemon OR yellow) AND (automobile OR car OR vehicle)
A better search string uses the proximity limiter: (gold OR lemon OR yellow) /15 (automobile OR car OR vehicle)
Search tips:
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Using search operators is a smart tactic for finding precise results; understanding them can make searching easy. Search operators are connecting words and/or symbols which affect how your search terms are dealt with by a database. While they are very useful, do not rely on search operators to the point that you ignore the built-in filtering mechanisms - such as advanced search forms - that exist in most databases. |
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Lexis Advance and Westlaw Australia are competitors in legal publishing. Westlaw has the publishing contract for authorised court reporting series. AustLII and Jade publish open access legal content. Articles from Lexis Advance, Westlaw, and AustLII are not included in Library Search results. Library Search includes articles from Gale, HeinOnline, Kluwer, Oxford and ProQuest, although Library Search does not support sophisticated search strings. |
Boolean Operators
Boolean operators are the most common operators/connectors in databases (and not just in the law databases).
They derive from Boolean algebra, which was established by George Boole in the 19th century.
Each database may use a different symbol to represent these connectors, but they work in the same way.
The most useful Boolean operators are AND, OR and WITHIN.
They are used to represent a relationship between two search terms.
AND - use AND when you want both search terms to appear within the same document.
For example:
murder AND provocation
trademark AND registration
professional AND misconduct
damages AND compensation
WITHIN is similar to AND, but is more powerful.
Use WITHIN when you want both search terms to appear in the same document within, or near, so many words of each other.
Different databases use different words or symbols for the proximity symbol:
murder NEAR/10 provocation - the word murder will be within 10 words of provocation (any order) (AustLII)
murder /10 provocation - the word murder will be within 10 words of provocation (any order) (Lexis Advance, WestlawAU)
murder W/10 provocation - the word murder will be within 10 words of provocation (any order) (HeinOnline)
OR - use OR when when you want one term or another, or both, to appear within the document.
children OR minors
contract OR agreement
onus OR burden of proof
false imprisonment OR deprivation of liberty
NOT - use NOT when you want one search term to appear within the document but the other not to appear.
murder NOT manslaughter
taxation NOT income
mistake NOT misrepresentation
written NOT verbal
You should be able to use these Boolean operators within a wide variety of databases.
You just need to use the correct symbol.
The symbols used by the key law databases are set out later in this topic.
Sample Search String
Research topic: death from assault with client claiming self defence
((death OR "grievous bodily harm" OR kill OR manslaughter OR murder OR "serious injury") /25 (provo! OR (self /3 defen!) OR "reasonable force")) /75 assault
Other Terms and Connectors
In addition to Boolean operators, databases use a number of other symbols to construct searches.
The next section of this topic discusses the most common of these.
Phrase searching
In legal research, phrase searching is important to finding accurate results.
Without letting the database know you are looking for a phrase, it will often assume you are looking for each word individually.
For instance searching Australian Citizenship Act will bring back all the results that include the words Australian or Citizenship or Act.
Running this search in Westlaw Australia Secondary Sources retrieves over 10,000 results.
Attempting the search as "Australian Citizenship Act" will find the terms as they appear in that exact order.
This search retrieves around 200 results, a huge reduction on the number of results from the first search, with results that are more on point!
Truncation
Truncation can be a useful way of expanding your search to including results that contain the various endings that a particular word may have.
Truncators are also called root expanders as they expand upon the root word.
For example, persecut! finds persecute, persecution, persecuting and persecuted.
Proximity searching
Proximity searching can be used to increase the accuracy of your results.
By bringing terms closer together within a document the chances of that document being relevant to your search increases.
For instance you may search for the terms refugee AND persecution and find a large number of results, but they may not all be relevant as the two separate terms may not appear in the same part of the document.
Searching for refugee /25 persecution will increase the relevancy of your results by ensuring that the two terms appear in the same document within 25 words of each other.
Wildcards
Wildcard symbols allow you to replace a character within a search term, regardless of its position within the word.
It can be very useful for when you don't know the exact spelling, or there are words that have the same meaning but can often have multiple spellings.
This is particularly important when searching for words with variable Australian and American spellings.
For example: wom*n finds woman and women; authori*ed finds authorised and authorized; legali*e will find both legalise and legalize.
Combining Search Terms & Connectors
It is important to note that you can use a variety of the Boolean operators and other terms and connectors together.
They work like a mathematical equation, so you should use brackets to construct longer searches.
For example:
(refugee AND persecut!) NOT (relig! OR belief OR faith)
will retrieve results that contain the terms refugee, persecute, persecution, persecuting and persecuted, but will not include the terms religion, religious, belief, faith.
Using the Advanced Search Forms
As previously mentioned, while terms and connectors are very useful, do not forget the built-in mechanisms such as advanced search forms. Search connectors should be used to complement these features. Understanding these search terms and how they operate can help you make better use of the advanced search forms contained within databases.
Terms & Connectors Summary
The table below summarises the terms and connectors that can be used in some of the key law databases.*
| Common connectors | Westlaw Australia | Lexis Advance | CCH IntelliConnect | Informit AGIS |
AustLII |
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AND |
& (or a space) |
AND |
AND (or a space) |
AND (or a +) |
AND |
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OR |
OR | OR | OR |
OR (or a |) |
OR |
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BUT NOT |
% | AND NOT | NOT |
NOT (or a -) |
NOT |
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Phrase
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" " | Consecutive words are assumed to be a phrase | " " | " " | " " |
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Truncation
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! | ! | * | * | * |
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Wildcard
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* | * | ? | ? | ? |
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Proximity Finds terms within n terms of each other (where n is a number) |
/n (e.g. refugee /5 persecution) |
/n (e.g. refugee w/5 persecution) |
w/n (e.g. refugee w/5 persecution) |
%10 (terms within 10 words and in any order) or !10 (terms within 10 words and in this order) |
w/n (e.g. refugee w/5 persecution) or NEAR (the first term is within 50 words of the second) |
*This table was developed using information found in A practical guide to legal research / Jay Sanderson, Kim Kelly