Westlaw thesaurus: Brainstorming tool

Let the Westlaw thesaurus bring you the alternative terms you need for a thorough Westlaw search.

Suppose you are composing a Westlaw query pertaining to the taxation of S corporations and you want to find as many synonyms and related terms as you can for the term S corporation. Where would you look?

Hint: Not Roget's.

Instead, try this: Access a database on Westlaw, type "s corporation" in the Search text box, and click Thesaurus. A list of 39 synonyms and related terms is displayed, ripe for cherry-picking.

The Westlaw thesaurus provides synonyms, and related terms for the terms you use in a Terms and Connectors query or Natural Language description. The thesaurus makes it easy to add several related terms to your query or description, minimizing the risk of missing an important document.

In addition, the Westlaw thesaurus contains a collection of thousands of tax-specific and insurance-specific words, phrases, and citations you can use as search terms. For the term depreciation, for instance, the thesaurus instantly identifies more than 80 related tax terms, including depletion, IRC 173, straight-line recovery of intangibles, and Form 4562.

To add related terms to your query or description, type your query or description at the Search page (place phrases in quotation marks) and click Thesaurus. Select a term in the Terms in Search list box, then select a term on the Related Terms list box, and click Add. The related term is added to your query or description, which is displayed in the Current Search box. (Hold down the Shift key or Ctrl key to select multiple related terms.) When you are done adding related terms, click OK to return to the Search page.

You can still come up with alternative terms yourself, of course. When time permits.

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