Evaluating Web Sources (also Westlaw and Lexis searching)

What should you know about a web source before relying on it?  Who is the author?  Who (if not the author) is the publisher?  How old is the information?  Is it biased?  Is it documented?

Problems with evaluating international and foreign web sources  English may not be author’s first language  Style may not conform to Western custom  Researcher may not know enough to perceive bias or judge credentials

Response to problems evaluating sources  Apply different standard for ESL text  Overcome expectations about style  Research, consult

Problems with quality of international and foreign web sources  Non-governmental organizations – funding and commitment.  Some governments –less funding, less transparency  asymmetrical sites (English- language version vs. vernacular)  Infrastructure (unstable sites)

Response to problems with quality of sources  Update and cross-check NGO information  Extend search –perhaps to paper sources.  Accept “worse” information.  If important, get translator for non- English side of websites.  Print when up, cache when down; Wayback machine.

Westlaw and Lexis  Thousands of databases  Listed by topic, jurisdiction, publication…  Database selection is crucial  Know the scope of the database  Efficiency requires smallest appropriate database

WL and LX—not your friends  2009 study of WL/LX interface design shows: they push caselaw databases they push large databases secondary sources hard to find “As on Westlaw, LexisNexis places its largest, most expensive primary law databases first in the prime viewing area of the screen.” --Julie Jones

Finding databases  Both LX and WL have hierarchical directories  WL also has “Search for a database,” letting you search by terms (e.g., inter-american)  LX has separate SourceFinder:  Call/use chat for help

Pricing  Complex, perhaps deliberately so  Law offices have indiv Ks usually w/non-disclosure provisions  Types of pricing Transactional (per search) Hourly Flat-rate Pay for printing (use browser!)

Searching: Natural language Best for:  Unfamiliar areas  Very abstract, general terms  Need something, not a particular thing Results don’t mean an answer

Natural language continued  Results ranked by relevance  Use thesaurus to improve results  On Westlaw, browse results with “Best” button  On Lexis, use KWIC to browse  Relevance often drops off quickly

Terms and Connectors  Preferred by expert searchers  More control Field/segment searching (some available w/natural language) Controlled truncation Narrow connectors  Use drop-down menus for prompts

Four key parts of expert searching  Truncation!  Field searching  Synonyms  Grammatical and proximity connectors

Search syntax (Westlaw)  Sample search in journals and law reviews database: author(oren /2 gross) & tortur! /s interrogat! question! /p “human right” = all articles written by oren gross that contain the word torture(s), torturing, or tortured in the same sentence as the word interrogate(s), interrogatory(ies), interrogation, interrogated, interrogating or the word question(s), questioning, or questioned, all in the same paragraph as the phrase human right or human rights.

Search syntax: Lexis  Sample search in journals and law reviews database: author(oren w/s gross) & tortur! w/s interrogat! OR question! /p human right = all articles written by oren gross that contain the word torture(s), torturing, or tortured in the same sentence as the word interrogate(s), interrogatory(ies), interrogation, interrogated, interrogating or the word question(s), questioning, or questioned, all in the same paragraph as the phrase human right or human rights.

LX & WL searching: How they differ  WL interprets space as “or” So put phrases in quotation marks  Lexis sees terms as phrases So separate synonyms with “or”  Lexis doesn’t allow combining proximity connectors with grammatical connectors

Best use of the “not” connector  Often, you will try multiple searches within a database.  You don’t want to retrieve the same documents twice.  Paste your previous search after the “not” connector to exclude documents you’ve already found.  Westlaw (but not, %); Lexis (and not).