Skip to Main Content

Basic Search Tool Examples: Basic Searching in Nexis Uni

A guide for using the basic features of the academic search complete database.

Searching in Nexis Uni

Nexis Uni provides researchers and professionals with comprehensive access to a vast database of news, business, and legal sources. The platform offers advanced search capabilities that allow users to quickly find relevant information, save their searches, and set up alerts to stay informed on topics of interest. The intuitive interface makes the research process efficient and effective, while the reliable sources available on Nexis Uni enable users to conduct in-depth analysis and fact-checking. Overall, Nexis Uni is a powerful tool that streamlines research and helps users stay ahead of the curve in their respective fields.

Search Process Tutorial

Searching

There are two search forms for Nexis Uni, a Basic Search and an Advanced Search. This guide section provides quick tip videos for searching and understanding search results.

Basic Search Using Natural Language

A plain language search is effective when you are just starting your research project or you do not know a lot about the topic you are researching. When you use plain language in your search, such as how is the valuation determined for a leveraged buyout? or leveraged buyout valuation, the service runs a natural language search. An algorithm analyzes your search terms and retrieves results based on the relevance of your terms. 

The following information helps explain what happens when the service runs your search as a Natural Language search:

  • Some common words, such as theany, and it, are ignored a Natural Language search. 
  • If you enter a legal phrase, such as summary judgment, the service recognizes the legal phrases and treats both as a phrase and as a search for the individual terms. For example, a search for summary judgment retrieves documents with the phrase summary judgment, but also retrieves documents that only contain the word judgment or only contain the word summary.
  • If you want to find an exact phrase, put the phrase in quotation marks.
    Note: Using quotation marks turns off some search functionality. For more information, see Finding Variations of Words on Nexis Uni 

Advanced Search 
For more complex research needs, Nexis Uni offers an advanced search interface with a wide range of options to narrow and refine searches. Users can combine keywords with Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT to build complex queries. The advanced search also allows users to search within specific fields like headlines, author names, or company names. Additionally, users can filter results by publication date range, source type, geographic focus, and much more. The advanced search in Nexis Uni gives experienced researchers robust tools to uncover highly targeted and relevant information from the massive database of content.