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Using Proximity Connectors
LexisNexis provides several proximity connectors for use in creating Boolean searches. Proximity connectors give researchers added flexibility in finding relevant documents and narrowing down the results. The following proximity connectors are used on Lexis:
- W/n
- W/S
- NOT W/P
- PRE/n
- NOT W/S
- W/SEG
- NOT W/n
- W/P
- NOT W/SEG
The W/n connector is the most common connector used on LexisNexis. Substitute the “n” for any number between 1 and 255 when using this connector. The search “cat W/25 dog” only retrieves documents where the word “cat” appears within 25 words on either side of the word “dog.”
The PRE/n connector is an ordered proximity connector that goes one step beyond the W/n connector. The PRE/n connector requires the first word to precede the second word by no more than n words. The search “cat PRE/25 dog” only retrieves documents where the word “cat” precedes the word “dog” by no more than 25 words. This search would find the phrase “cat and dog” but would exclude the phrase “dog and cat.”
The NOT W/n connector is used to find a word or phrase when you want to exclude another word or phrase. For instance, if you want to search for the word RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) and do not want to retrieve documents that contain the phrase Puerto Rico, you could run the following search: “rico not w/5 puerto.”
The other proximity connectors work in the same manner as the W/n and NOT W/n connectors. The W/S and NOT W/S connectors find or exclude words that appear within the same sentence. The W/P and NOT W/P connectors find or exclude words that are in the same paragraph. The W/SEG and NOT W/SEG connectors find or exclude words within the same segment.
The LexisNexis Knowledge Base has additional information on using proximity connectors and segments.
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