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- Highlighting and heat mapping on Westlaw Edge
You may already know that Westlaw offers options for organizing your research. For example, the folders and annotation options make it easy to manage search results for future use. But we understand that navigating through search results can still be challenging and time consuming, especially when there is a large amount of case law to sort through.
Navigating through your search results and determining where to focus your attention just got easier with two new enhancements on Westlaw Edge:
- Select Highlighting: Adds five new highlighting options for your search terms
- Term Frequency Heat Map: Shows how often your highlighted terms appear within a case
Select Highlighting: Helping you instantly see what matters most
Your search terms have long been highlighted in yellow in your results. But Select Highlighting takes this markup to the next level, giving you the option to highlight terms related to specific concepts, words, or phrases that matter most to your research.
In addition to the original yellow markup of terms, as well as the Search Within Result and Search Within Document highlighting, you can choose up to five additional highlighting colors to draw attention to specific language within your search result list. This makes it easier than ever to scan result lists and identify the most relevant results for your issue.
You can activate Select Highlighting from either the results list or after opening a case. In an opened case, you’ll see the option to navigate through the terms with selected highlights applied, as well as a list of those chosen terms within the table of contents panel to the left of the case.
Term Frequency Heat Map: Taking you right to the heart of the issue
The Term Density Heat Map provides a unique view of each Select Highlighting option, indicating how it fits into a court’s analysis and displaying the frequency of highlighted terms within each section of a case.
You can access the heatmap from within the table of contents panel, where you’ll see a toggle for “Show Term Density Heat Map.” You can then adjust the view of the heatmap — including or removing term options — to focus on specific terms and phrases, allowing you to more efficiently scrutinize how heavily your terms are addressed by the court.
Customizing your research helps you pinpoint the most relevant authority for your legal issue. The new Select Highlighting and Term Density Heat Map features on Westlaw Edge simplify the traditionally tedious task of scanning cases, allowing you to quickly understand how your term selections are treated and confidently recognize the best cases for your client.
These Westlaw Edge-exclusive tools help you tailor your queries and result lists in a way that makes your search results come to life.
