Formulating a Cost-Effective Search

Fully plan your search on paper before signing on to Westlaw. Search Preparation Fully plan your search on paper before signing on to Westlaw. Articulate your issue, using concise legal terminology. Choose key terms. Add reasonable alternative terms for your key terms. If you are using the Terms and Connectors search method, select appropriate connectors. liability of car manufacturer for defective tires liability car defective tire vehicle dangerous automobile liab! /p car automobile vehicle /p danger! defect! /s tire

Choosing the Search Method Decide whether Terms and Connectors or Natural Language searching will be more effective. Use Natural Language when you are searching for broad concepts you are a new or infrequent user of Westlaw your Terms and Connectors search is not retrieving the information you need

Choosing the Query Method Use Terms and Connectors when you are searching for particular terms you need to find all documents containing very specific information, such as all cases with a particular topic and key number or all articles that mention a specific company name you need to search a database for which Natural Language searching is not available