WESTLAW ADVANTAGE: SMART TOOLS
Search aids that pick up on where you're going and help you get there.
Smart Tools on Westlaw, a suite of automatic search enhancements, helps make sure you don't miss something important with your Westlaw search.
Get great search results without having to construct the perfect query.
When you take advantage of Westlaw's Smart Tools, you'll spend less time searching, leaving more time for analysis. You'll also get reliably thorough results and enjoy the confidence of knowing that you didn't miss anything important.
Did You Mean: Smarter than your average spell checker.
The Did You Mean Smart Tool uses the vast database of legal terms and acronyms on Westlaw to help you find relevant documents quickly. Did You Mean is much smarter than a simple spell checker; it is a legal search enhancement that you can trust.
The types of errors that the Did You Mean Smart Tool catches include:
- Misspellings of common terms, e.g., licence instead of license
- Misspellings of legal terms, e.g., habeus corpus instead of habeas corpus
- Misspellings of legal acronyms, e.g., HIPPA instead of HIPAA
- Terms that are spelled correctly but are used incorrectly in a legal context
Add Related Terms: Include relevant synonyms in your search.
The Add Related Terms Smart Tool makes your research more thorough by automatically suggesting legal synonyms for your query. More than a legal thesaurus, the Add Related Terms Smart Tool was developed by attorneys for attorneys. Synonyms for thousands of legal terms and phrases are included in Westlaw, and you can add any or all of the suggested terms to a new search.
For example, if you included the phrase impossibility of performance in a query, Westlaw might also suggest impracticability of performance, frustration of purpose, and commercial frustration. You are given the option to add any or all alternative terms to strengthen your query.
Expand Search: Get more results from related databases.
The Expand Search Smart Tool offers timely tips to make your Westlaw searches more productive. If your query generates fewer than five document results, Westlaw suggests larger databases that logically extend your current choices.
Other ways Westlaw helps improve your research
In addition to Smart Tools, Westlaw offers the following features to ensure that you receive the best search results possible.
- Automatic searching of plurals and possessives
- Automatic searching of irregular plurals, e.g., child also retrieves children
- Automatic searching of compound words, e.g., whistle-blower also retrieves whistleblower
- Automatic equivalents for common misspellings, e.g., judgement also retrieves judgment
- Automatic searching of all variations of acronyms, e.g., H.I.V. also retrieves HIV, H. I. V.
- Automatic retrieval of a database when you enter part of a database name or database description
Smart Tools are available to all Westlaw subscribers, and you can use them anytime you need them. To learn more,
Take a Closer Look
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See how Westlaw's Smart Tools allow you to spend less time searching and more time analyzing on-point content.
Product Support
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This quick reference guide provides additional information about each of Westlaw's Smart Tools, including Did You Mean, Add Related Terms, and Expand Search.