Access: Click the Lexis-Nexis link on the OhioLINK My express Links page or from the Clark State Reference page. Either will take you to the main menu of the Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe.

The main menu of the Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe offers you a choice among 18 different databases. They are all full text with the exception of Medical Abstracts which, as its name suggests, contains only abstracts or summaries. Take some time to explore a few. If your time is very limited (your paper is due tomorrow) ask a member of the library staff for help.

Two of the most useful are the General News Topics and the General Medical and Health Topics databases. If you're looking for articles on medical subjects, try both of these. For some reason there are journals which deal with health topics which appear in the General News Topics database.

Whichever database you are using, explore the options/parameters contained there. If you click and hold in the boxes labeled 'source' and 'date' you will see that there are more menu options. (Boxes which contain pull-down menus may have a little black triangle, or may be shadowed, or may simply be blank.) Use your mouse to drag down to the option you want.

Example: Under General News Topics, you can change the default from newspapers to magazines.

Example: Under General Medical and Health Topics you can change from Medical and Heath News to Medical and Health Journals.

Example: You can change 'keyword' to 'byline' if you're looking for an article by a particular author.

The database Search Form provides you with boxes to type in your topic. To activate the box so that you can type in it, click anywhere in the box. To move to the next box, click again, or hit the tab key. Type in your topic. Read the Search Tips to use whichever database you're in to the best effect. Also, these databases are extremely unforgiving on spelling. Be sure your spelling is correct. Once you've practiced a little, you can use some of the more advanced search techniques to get more accurate and specific results.

Be sure to explore the date parameters. Otherwise you may get too large a set of data to retrieve. If you know the date that an article was printed, enter the date in both of the date boxes.

Remember that if you're looking for newspaper articles and you know the date that an event happened, morning newspapers will carry the story a day later. Nowadays many, if not most, newspapers are morning papers.

If you know the title of the article and the byline or author, type in the title in the first box, and the byline (author's first name first) in the second. Type in the date--same date in both boxes, and be sure to click in the little circle in front of the 'from' and 'to' boxes. If you have used the OhioLINK Newspaper Abstracts database as an index, you will know all of these things.

When your search form is filled in, with all the options/parameters as you want them, click in the search box on the Lexis screen (not the browser's search button.) Once you have retrieved a set of Search Results, you can click on the highlighted and underlined source to go directly to the full text.

Print by clicking the print button on your browser, and then hit return. If you're in the library, your laser printout will be available (no charge if you're a student -- your technology fee at work!) at the front desk.

Read and practice the Search Tips! And ask the librarians for help, too!

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