What are Boolean searches, Natural language searches and Citation searches?
“Boolean” (or “keyword”) searches allow searchers to use terms such as AND, OR, NOT, ( ), ” “, to find cases relevant to a research question. Using “w/n” between two search terms (where n is a number) will find cases in which the two terms appear within n words of each other. Fastcase uses the “implied AND” search protocol, which means if there is no connector between search terms, it is treated as if the “AND” connector was used. Natural language searches are much less precise, but are a good place to start if you don’t have exact search terms. Natural Language searches return the best 100 results for your search, even if some of your terms don’t appear in the results, or even if more than 100 cases contain your search terms. This search works well if you want to include certain words in your keyword search that might or might not appear in the result. For example, if you wanted to search for the phrase “Rule 11 sanctions for frivolous filing”, a Boolean search, the search would only
