The gatekeepers of legal research are fond of marginalizing advanced Boolean searchers as "word guessers."
To an extent they are right. In the absence of a toolset of best practices legal researchers guess words.
Here's the question? Why guess words when the text and/or number of your controlling statute, rule, regulation or judicial opinion forces your choice of words.
782.04 is the number assigned by the Florida legislature to the first degree murder statute in that jurisdiction. If we want to check first degree murder cases in Florida, we anchor our query with this number. Not only do we find every first degree murder case citing our statue, that's all we find because with such a unique search term, it's impossible to find anything but first degree murder cases.
The gatekeepers of legal research love to say, "You never know where you might find the answer." This is crap!
Of course we know. We're going to find our answer in a judicial opinion that construes our controlling codified item(s) of information or concept(s) for the reason(s) we care about. Or not. But we're going to resolve the search to 'yes' or 'no' in a click or two. Guided by the strict language of the law, we find what's there, what's not there and move on.
782.04 & "sexual battery" finds the subset of Florida first degree murder cases where the separate felony of sexual battery is involved. Had we been guessing words, our query would have been poisoned by the addition of the term 'sexual assault', for example. But, we were not guessing. 'Sexual battery' was cribbed directly from the plain language of 782.04. Our additional search term choice was forced by the statutory language.
Throughout our search, we consistently invoke the language of the law. We never step outside the four squares of terms chosen by legislators, regulators, rulemakers or judges. Unless the facts of our case force an alternative or additional choice of words.
Perhaps the murder weapon is a knife.
782.04 & "sexual battery" & (knife or stab!)
This search finds opinions citing our statute in a sexual battery context, together with knife or derivatives of stab, i.e. stab, stabbed, stabbing. Our alternative 'or' terms are grouped in parenthesis. As a Boolean searcher, this is the only time you use parenthesis.
Anchor your query with the number assigned to the controlling codified item of information driving your search. If necessary, filter these results by leveraging the unique nomenclature provided in the text of the controlling law, regulation or rule. Never - ever - guess words.
