Critical Reviews

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Revision as of 13:49, 15 November 2007

Introduction: Critical Reviews in LexisNexis Academic

Critical reviews such as book reviews and theater reviews are important for many kinds of researchers. LexisNexis Academic is a great place to find reviews that appear in newspapers and magzines. It is not a good source for reviews published in scholarly journals.

The discussion below explains how to locate reviews by using SmartIndexing terms or by using source selection. The most comprehensive search is probably to use the index term method in the Power Search form with the “News (All, English)” source selected.

Using Index Terms

The LexisNexis SmartIndexing subject taxonomy includes terms for book, movie, theater, and video reviews. The Source Selection method described below limits your search to specific sources. The index term method will find reviews in sources, such as local newspapers, that may not be covered by these predetermined sources.

Power Search with indexing

Navigate to the Power Search form, then follow these steps:

First, pick your source. If the source you want to search is not offered as an option in the dropdown, use the “Find more sources” option to pick one or more sources.
In the Power Search form use the “Add keywords” option to pop up the index terms tool
Select the “Subject” taxonomy in the dropdown box at top right
Select the “Hierarchy” radio button at top
Browse down to the “Reports, Reviews, and Sections” category and expand it to reveal the index terms for Book Reviews etc.
Select the term(s) you want to add to your search and click the “OK” button at bottom right
This will return you to the Power Search form ready to add your search terms and date restriction

News search with indexing

Navigate to the News search form, then follow these steps:

Select “Terms & Connectors” search
Enter your search terms in the first search box; accept the “Anywhere in document” option in the dropdown or restrict to “Headline and lead paragraph”
Enter “review” in the second search box; use the dropdown to restrict to “In indexing”; if you want to restrict to a particular type, enter "book review" or "movie review" etc.
Pick your source
Add a date restriction and search

Using Source Selection

Choosing Sources

You can choose a source that focuses on reviews. Some of these are individual titles (Kirkus Review), others are group sources that pull together many book reviews from different sources (Movie Reviews), and some are slices of specific sources that pull out just the book reviews (Library Journal’s Reviews). Use one of the two methods listed to choose a source, or the direct links. This will take you to the Power Search form, ready to add your search terms and date restriction.

You can look up these sources in the Source Selection tab by searching on “reviews”

You can browse to these sources, select the Industry radio button at the top of the Source browse, then select the Entertainment & Arts folder to list all the sources in this category. Select the sources you want to search, then click "OK continue" to start searching.