Industry news searching: Getting down to business

Here's how to focus your search for industry news–and even have the search run automatically.

Suppose you want recent articles that discuss a particular industry, e.g., the glass industry. If you were to search for the word glass, you could retrieve articles that contain the name Stephen Glass or the phrase glass house (or that otherwise mention glass only in passing).

Is there a way out?

If you use Westlaw, there are at least two ways out:

• You can add an industry field (ind) restriction to your query.
• You can use the Limit Your Search Using SmartTerms feature.

Industry field

At the bottom of the typical document retrieved from a NewsRoom™ database, e.g., the New York Times database (NYT), is the index field. The index field is made up of the industry field, the geographic (region) field, and other fields that contain terms related to the document.

In the industry field, you find terms and index codes that correspond to industries referenced in the document. The industry field helps ensure that you don't miss relevant articles that use only company names or alternative terms.

In addition, the industry field helps you narrow your search result to relevant documents.

For example, to retrieve articles, wire stories, and other news documents pertaining to the glass industry, access the All News Plus Wires database (ALLNEWSPLUS). Then add an industry field restriction to your query, e.g., ind(glass).

The industry code can help you further restrict your search by industry. For example, to retrieve documents that discuss only the industrial glass industry, search for the index code 1IN89 in the industry field: ind(1in89).

Limit Your Search Using SmartTerms feature

At the Search page of any NewsRoom database is the Limit Your Search Using SmartTerms feature, which makes it easy to focus your search using subject, company, and industry names used in NewsRoom indexing.

To use this feature to search for industry-specific documents, complete these steps:

1. Select the Terms and Connectors search method if it is not already selected.
2. Click the Industry tab.
3. Choose Begins With, Contains, or Exact Phrase from the drop-down list and type a search term in the text box following it. Then click Scan.
4. Select the check box next to one or more industry names. Click the right arrow to add these industry names to your search. Click Search Westlaw.

Use WestClip® with SmartTerms to monitor an industry

If you want to monitor the news about a particular industry, SmartTerms can help you create a focused WestClip entry. Whenever a news document with a specific SmartTerms category is added to Westlaw, you are notified automatically.

Follow these steps:

1. Click Alert Center at the top of any Westlaw page. The Alert Center Directory is displayed.
2. Click Create in the WestClip section. The WestClip: Create Entry page is displayed.
3. Type a database identifier and a name for the entry. Click Limit Your News Search using SmartTerms to display the Limit Your Search Using SmartTerms feature.
4. Select your SmartTerms as described above. Click Save.

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