1. Formulating a Cost-Effective Search

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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