Knowledge and Research Consultant Tip: Using Directories to Find Information on People

When conducting a search of a person’s name in the Directories content type on the Lexis® or Lexis+® platforms, one of the issues you may face is pulling up all documents in the directories that merely mention the person’s name rather than specific entries about that person.

This happens because people are connected to organizations, companies, employment history, biographies and cited news articles or other sources, and it is magnified when searching for a well-known person. This tip will help you refine your search to documents about a specific person. In Directories, the NAME segment refers to the name of the person the entry is about.

First, select the Directories content type and enter a general name search. For example, enter Elon /2 Musk.

As you can see, the result of this full-text search is over 9,000 documents:

Use the Search Within Results filter to limit to name(Elon /2 Musk).

The result is just over 100 documents:

On Lexis+, one can either type the search as above or use the segments drop-down in the Search Within Results filter, choose Name, and enter the name in the filter’s search box.