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Using the Citation Format Assistant
Sometimes the most difficult task about using Get a Document or Shepard’s® is knowing the correct format. The LexisNexis® Citation Format Assistant (“CFA”) takes the guesswork out of the job. Not only can you quickly find the correct format, you can also locate the coverage for specific Law Reviews and Journals.
You can access the CFA from the main tab for either Get a Document or Shepard’s by clicking the Citation Formats hyperlink. Clicking the hyperlink opens the CFA. The CFA contains 2 options. Option 1 allows you to search for a source by name, Option 2 provides you with an alphabetical index. Both options give you the flexibility to quickly find the correct format for particular sources, but this article is going to focus on Option 1.
To use Option 1, type in the name or part of the name of a source and click Find. Option 1 uses a word wheel, so you do not need to type in the full name of any source. Also, the letters typed in do not need to appear at the beginning of any word. The following examples show the power of using this tool:
- Type in “California Civil,” click Find and retrieve the 3 sources that contain the words California and Civil in the title
- Type in “cal civ,” click Find and retrieve the 4 sources that contain those characters in the title (notice an extra source was located that included the word “local” which includes the letters “cal”—also notice that you do not need to capitalize letters to find results)
- Type in “calciv,” click Find and retrieve the 4 sources that contain those characters in the title (notice here that spacing does not matter either)
- Type in “new yo stat” click Find and retrieve a listing of all the New York statutes
When you use Option 1, it is best to provide enough letters in your request so that you retrieve only what you want. For instance, a search for “California” will retrieve EVERY document that contains California in the title. So unless you want to see several screens of California sources, you may want to narrow the search down. If you know that you want to retrieve the New York Consolidated Law Service, Public Housing Law, then a search for “New York pub hou” will find just the listing you want.
Once you have a listing of sources, all you need to do is click the blue hyperlink to get a template for pulling up the source. The template also lists how the citation should be entered to retrieve your document. This can be very important for some sources.
If you want Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, type in “un stat const” in the CFA, click Find and then click on the blue hyperlink. Notice that to retrieve the Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution, you need to use the format U.S. Const. Art. I, @ 1. The template has just the U.S. Const. typed in and a blank box. Failure to type in the word “art” will cause the search to fail. If you type in “Art. I, @ 1” and click Get, you will retrieve the correct section. While the format listed includes capitalization and punctuation, nether is necessary to retrieve a document. Also, the “@” symbol is also unnecessary. Typing in “art I 1” retrieves the correct document.
If you use the CFA to retrieve a Law Review or Journal, the template also lists the coverage for the publication. For instance, in the CFA type in “harv law rev” and click Find. Click on the hyperlink for the Harvard Law Review. Notice that under the template for the citation, the coverage is listed. Here the coverage starts with volume 96 in 1982. If you are trying to retrieve volume 91, you will get no results.
For more information on using the CFA, see Viewing the Citation Format Assistant and Finding Citation Formats with the Citation Format Assistant in the LexisNexis Knowledge Base.
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