Friday, January 9, 2009

04. ANALYZE YOUR RESULTS

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(a) Search Trail A gray strip appears at the top of your results analysis screen that includes a link to the original search screen. Clicking Search returns you to original search interface. (b) Search Query Reminder Your search query, as originally entered, also appears as part of the search trail in the gray strip at the top of the screen. (c) Hit Navigation Utility The Hit Navigation Utility tells you at a glance how many total hits you received and the numbered hits received on the page. Single Forward and Back Arrows navigate you through each results page. Double Forward and Back Arrows jump to the first or last page of results, respectively. (d) Sort Results By Jurisdiction A jurisdiction specific drop down menu is embedded into the upper left corner of the results analysis screen. This utility is extremely helpful whenever you metasearch multiple jurisdictions. At a glance you can see the subset of jurisdictions that return hits. Select a single jurisdiction from the drop down menu to instantly produce a results list comprised of that subset of opinions from your original results originating from the jurisdiction specified. (e) Sort Results By Relevance By default, TheLaw.net Equalizer 7.0 is configured to sort results by relevancy. A relevancy percentage is assigned to each hit based on the frequency and position of search terms in the opinion. When you consider Relevance and Citation Frequency in combination, you can easily identify which opinions are being cited most for the reasons you care about. (f) Sort Results By Case Name All results columns are sortable. To sort in numeric or alphabetical order, click the hyperlinked title assigned to each column. Click Case Name to sort in ascending alphabetical order. Click it again to sort in reverse alphabetical order. This utility is most helpful for identifying opinions containing identical party names from within a generic list of results. (g) Sort Results By Decision Date Click Decision Date to sort results by date. This function allows you to quickly identify the most recent judicial opinion containing your search terms. (h) Sort Results By Citation Frequency By default Thelaw.net Equalizer 7.0, is configured to Citetrak the Entire Database. Meaning, each hit is provided a numeric hyperlink telling you at a glance whether the corresponding hit has been cited and if so, how frequently. Click the numeric link assigned to each opinion to generate a results list of opinions citing that opinion. Click Entire Database to sort by citation frequency. This simple function surfaces the most cited opinion(s) on any topic. Finally, in analyzing your results, look for opinions where the relevance percentage and citation frequency are both high in comparison to other opinions on your list. High relevance and high citation frequency means your opinion is being cited often for the reason(s) you care about! (i) Most Relevant Paragraph We pin the most relevant paragraph from each opinion directly under the hyperlinked case caption.