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Talka
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm trying to do an archival search of various newspapers and I've come across a few stumbling blocks I can't figure out.
I want to see how often a given newspaper mentions morality terms (e.g., morality, ethics, values, justice, etc). In order to do this I need the number of articles that mention the word "moral," for example, in a given year. And I also need the total number of articles the newspaper published in the same year. For instance, I've used the NYTimes website and found that in 1960 they published 1,347 articles containing "moral* NOT morale," and that they published a total of 138,085 articles that year. So in 1960, 0.98% of their articles contained "moral* NOT morale." I want to do that for every year since 1960 and for multiple newspapers (it's for a prof, don't ask).
Now here's where I have problems. Ideally, I could do this search in LexisNexis (that's what it's for, for God's sake). Unfortunately, LexisNexis limits the number of articles they return in a search. So if I search for all of the NYTimes articles in 1960, I'm told it's more than 5,000 and that I should refine my search. Fortunately, the NYTimes website is more helpful and lets me find out how many total articles they publish in a specific year. Unfortunately, their search tool kind of sucks in other ways. I can't actually do a "moral* NOT morale" search, because their search tool only supports + and - operators. There's no option for OR or for the wildcard.
Basically: online search tools are a pain in the ass. Is there a way to get around the cap LexisNexis and other websites (like the WSJ) put on the number of results they return? Is there a way do advanced search operators with search tools that don't seem to support them? I'm stuck and I need help.
I want to see how often a given newspaper mentions morality terms (e.g., morality, ethics, values, justice, etc). In order to do this I need the number of articles that mention the word "moral," for example, in a given year. And I also need the total number of articles the newspaper published in the same year. For instance, I've used the NYTimes website and found that in 1960 they published 1,347 articles containing "moral* NOT morale," and that they published a total of 138,085 articles that year. So in 1960, 0.98% of their articles contained "moral* NOT morale." I want to do that for every year since 1960 and for multiple newspapers (it's for a prof, don't ask).
Now here's where I have problems. Ideally, I could do this search in LexisNexis (that's what it's for, for God's sake). Unfortunately, LexisNexis limits the number of articles they return in a search. So if I search for all of the NYTimes articles in 1960, I'm told it's more than 5,000 and that I should refine my search. Fortunately, the NYTimes website is more helpful and lets me find out how many total articles they publish in a specific year. Unfortunately, their search tool kind of sucks in other ways. I can't actually do a "moral* NOT morale" search, because their search tool only supports + and - operators. There's no option for OR or for the wildcard.
Basically: online search tools are a pain in the ass. Is there a way to get around the cap LexisNexis and other websites (like the WSJ) put on the number of results they return? Is there a way do advanced search operators with search tools that don't seem to support them? I'm stuck and I need help.
Talka on
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I'm afraid it might be the only way, but I'm really hoping there's some other option.