Search syntax for Quicklaw, Westlaw and CanLII
| FEATURE | QUICKLAW | WESTLAW CANADA | CANLII |
|---|---|---|---|
| Default connector | Defaults to phrase search | Defaults to OR | Defaults to AND |
| Searching without Boolean commands | Use natural language option under Basic Search on Home page | Use the search templates or select natural language searching | Type terms into query box without connectors |
| Order in which Boolean commands are evaluated | 1. phrase 2. terms in parentheses 3. OR 4. proximity connectors (/n, PRE/n, /S, /P, /SEG) 5. AND 6. AND NOT |
1. phrase in
quotation marks 2. terms in parentheses 3. OR 4. proximity connectors (+n, /n, +S, /S, +P, /P) 5. AND 6. % |
1. phrase in
quotation marks 2. terms in parentheses 3. OR 4. proximity connectors (/n, /S, /P) 5. NOT 6. AND |
| Unordered proximity searches | /n (within
the number of words represented by n) /S (within the same sentence) /P (within the same paragraph) /SEG (within the same segment or field) |
/n (within
the number of words represented by n) /S (within the same sentence) /P (within the same paragraph) |
/n (within
the number of words represented by n) /S (within the same sentence) /P (within the same paragraph) |
| Ordered proximity searches | PRE/n (within the number of words represented by n) | +n (within
the number of words represented by n) +S (within the same sentence) +P (within the same paragraph) |
|
| Phrase searching | Quotation marks not required unless a word in the phrase is a connector or a stopped word | Use quotation marks | Use quotation marks |
| Parentheses | permitted - can be nested | permitted - can be nested | permitted - can be nested |
| Plurals and word variations | If turned on, searches for plural forms of singular and the reverse, and both masculine and feminine forms | Automatically searches for plural forms of singular but not the reverse; in natural language searching looks for word variations | Automatically searches for plural and singular and for usual word variations (contract, contracts, contracted, contracting) |
| Truncation | negligen! | negligen! | negligen* |
| Wild characters | reali*ation | reali*ation | reali*ation |
| Hyphens | hyphen is
treated as a space should therefore search as one word and as two words if term may be hyphenated |
automatically
searches for hyphenated search term as one word, as two words, and as
hyphenated should therefore search using hyphenated form |
automatically
searches for hyphenated search term as a phrase and as a hyphenated term but
not as one word should therefore search as one word and as hyphenated term |
| Periods and Acronyms | period is
treated as a space unless used with numbers or in an acronym should therefore search with and without periods if term may include periods |
if acronym is
entered with periods, automatically searches for acronym with and without
periods and spaces should therefore search for acronym with periods |
acronyms will
be found whether searching with or without periods should search with periods if searching for number string that contains periods (eg., 13.7) |
| Default ranking method | Case searches
use relevancy ranking but can be changed when viewing results to several other rankings, including citation frequency Statute searches sort by chapter and section number but can be changed to other rankings |
Default for boolean
searches is reverse chronological order (grouped by court level); default
for statutes and some other material is table of contents order; natural language searches
are relevancy ranked Change default in Preferences. No ability to change ranking after search is run. |
Default is relevancy ranking; can change to ranking by date or by citation frequency when viewing search results |
| Text being searched | cases and
journals - whole document is searched unless field search is specified statutes - search terms must appear in a single section texts - search terms must appear in section of text designated as a document |
cases and
journals - whole document is searched unless field search is specified statutes - search terms must appear in a single section texts - search terms must appear in section of text designated as a document |
cases - whole document is searched unless field search is
performed statutes - whole Act or regulation is searched |
| Field searching | select from template | select from template or use field(search terms) | select from template |
| Display | default
display is list of documents, with ability to display with key words, or
with search terms in context statutes are by section, but contiguous sections can be viewed by using Document Browse feature |
default
display is list in left frame and full document in right frame, with ability to go directly to hits statutes and CED are by section, but contiguous sections can be viewed using the Next and Previous links |
default display
is list of documents, with computer-generated keywords user can control highlighting of search terms in retrieved documents |
| Refining results | can group search results by topic, jurisdiction, court; use Modify Search to modify; use Narrow Search to refine | use Locate in Result to refine search results or Edit Search to modify them; refine KeyCite results using Limit KeyCite Display button while viewing Citing References | query box appearing with results list allows modification and refinement of search, including refinement of RefLex (note-up) results |
References
Tredwell, Susannah, "The Joy of Wildcards (and Boolean operators)" (1 September 2011) online: slaw <www.slaw.ca>