Lexis v. Westlaw for Research - Better, Different, or Same and the QWERTY Effect?

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Cavicchi, Jon R.
Copyright Year	2007
Abstract	There are synchronistic moments when in the process of writing. While contemplating this article, an email message made its way to my desk, past Pierce Law Center's spam firewall with the following subject line: “Pepsi v. Coke—Tell Us—Get $10.” Do IP researchers choose Lexis or Westlaw justified by taste? Surely you jest, some voice said to me. Repressing this message, I proceeded to compare platform content, perform literature searches, and poll students and IP professors. Yet another synchronistic moment came as the email from those taking the poll steamed into my email. Many IP professors indicated that they made the choice based on first to use. Some users reported that they found one system easier than the other. The sense that I got was that it was hard for them to explain what they meant by easier. Then came an email from Pierce Law Professor Bill Hennessey who reported his choice based on first to use and suggested the results were the “qwerty effect.” Brilliant—the “qwerty effect” is a phrase commonly used to describe the cause of a sub-optimal (usually anachronistic) solution to a problem where logically superior alternatives apparently exist. Related to qwerty is “path-dependence,” used by some authors to mean simply
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Alternate Webpage(s)	https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=law_facpub&httpsredir=1&referer=
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Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article