The Institute for Paralegal Education Welcomes You to

The Paralegal’s Guide to Going Beyond Basic Search:

Tapping into Google’s Full Potential for Legal Research

Going Beyond Basic Search: Tapping into Google’s Full Potential for Legal Research

– Essential search tips and productivity tools for using Google’s basic search effectively

– When and how to use Google’s advanced search– Finding legal materials using Google Scholar

• Friday, June 22, 12:00pm Eastern TimePresented by Elizabeth Geesey Holmes

About Elizabeth Geesey Holmes

Information Professional

Internet Search Specialist

I help attorneys, paralegals, and legal secretaries find authoritative information efficiently and cost effectively

“The digital age’s most mundane act, the Google search, often represents layer upon layer of intrigue.”David Segal. “The Dirty Little Secrets of Search”. New York Times. February 12, 2011

Essential search tips and productivity tools for using Google’s basic search effectively

Part 1:

Basic Search Main PageClick on arrow for Account Settings

Check Your Settings!

How to Change Your Settings

Do a Search FIRST!Click on gear to bring up search settings

Toggle showing or hiding personal results

Search Settings: Search Results

POWER USERS:Hold down the Shift button each time you click a link or, right-click on a link & select Open link in new window. If you're using a Mac, press the Command key when clicking links.

Search Settings: Search Results

Google Search automatically returns results in the language you choose for Google product text. You can also request results in other languages. If you don’t select any other language you will only get results if the page is in English

Search Settings: Languages

Search Settings: Location

My location is set to Baltimore, MD so my results are in that area

Check & change location quickly by clicking here

Use Boolean Searching (and/or other search strategies)

Boolean Logic

A system developed by mathematician George Boole during the 19th century that uses a series of connectors to define relationships between objects

Boolean Connectors: AND

• Google Default• All of the keywords are present– Search: probate law – Results: Both the term probate and the term law

Boolean Connectors: OR

• One keyword or the other, or both keywords are present– Search: probate OR trust law – Results: will all have the term law combined with

either the word trust or probate

NOTE: You must capitalize OR otherwise Google will treat it as a stop word and ignore it

Boolean Connectors: NOT (-)

• No results with this keyword are returned– Search: Anne Tyler –author -novel– Returns results with the keywords Anne and Tyler,

but without the keyword author, and without the word novel

– Use this strategy to find results for your former classmate Anne Tyler, but not for the novelist Anne Tyler

Word Stemming(and un-stemming)

Searching for constitutional will also find the words: constitution and constitutions

Proximity Searching:Asterisk (*)/ Wildcard

• Search: Elizabeth * Holmes• Results: Include:– Elizabeth Geesey Holmes– Elizabeth G Holmes, BUT also – Elizabeth Spencer, Amy Holmes

Proximity Searching:Asterisk (*)/ Wildcard

Phrase Searching: “ “

• Use for searching exact phrases or words• Use to stop Google from stemming• Enter your phrase or word in quotation marks– Search: Ed Braks – Results: Ed, Edward, Breaks – not Braks– Search: Ed “Braks” – Results: Ed, Edward and Braks – NO Breaks

Proximity Searching: AROUND

• Use the search operator AROUND(n) to specify the your words must be within n words of each other. – You can use any number for n– AROUND must be in all CAPS

• Very useful for searching names

Google suggests the word Breaks even though we used quotations around “Braks”

Search: Ed AROUND(2) “Braks”

Our results include Ed Braks, Edward Braks and Edward J. Braks.

Irrelevant Ad

Some Punctuation and Symbols in SearchSymbol Example Search Term

Plus sign + To search for blood type AB+ or programming language C++

“At” sign @ To find social tags @google

Ampersand & For strongly connected ideas/phrases like A&E or Brothers & Sisters

Dollar sign $ To indicate prices so nikon $400 and nikon 400 give different results

Hashtag # To search for trending topics indicated by hashtags #lifewithoutgoogle

Dash - To distinguish between cross reference and cross-reference

Underscore _ Is not ignored when it connects two words quick_sort

Navigate your search results

What if I just want News Articles?

Results limited to NEWS

Links to Advanced Search & Search Help

Ads related to this search

Other searches related to this search

When to Use Basic Search, and Some Other Tips & Tricks

Use Basic Search As…

• Your starting point– Narrow results, or use Boolean search operators

to get more relevant hits

Use Basic Search As…

• A tool to look up simple facts– Population Ecuador– President Poland– Capitol of Massachusetts

Use Basic Search As…

• A calculator7 * 2 + 4

Use Basic Search As…

• A dictionary– define res ipsa loquitur

Use Basic Search As…

• A weather forecasterweather 02806

When and how to use Google’s advanced search

Part 2:

How to get to Advanced Search 2. Click on GEAR Icon

3. Choose Advanced Search

2. Scroll to bottom of the page and click on Advanced Search

OR

1. Do a Basic Search

Limiting Results to Specific File Formats

• Enter your search words in the Boolean search boxes at the top of the page

• Scroll down to narrow your results by File Type• Choose the file type from the drop down box– Example: Limit search results to .ppt to find

presentations posted to the web by opposing experts.

Limiting Results to a Specific Web Site

• Search one site (like wikipedia.org) or limit your results to a domain like .edu, .org or .gov

• The command to do this in basic search is site:

Enter your search terms

Limit to a domain or domain type

All Results are from domains ending in .edu

Who is Linking to Whom?

• Use to determine possible business or personal relationships

• Use to evaluate a Web site for the first time• To search for web pages that link to a URL, use

the "link:" operator– Search: link: www.law.cornell.edu– Results: pages that link to Cornell’s Legal

Information Institute Web site

A few more Hidden Features

• Limiting results to where your search terms appear in the website– In the title of the page– In the text of the page– In the URL of the page– In links to the page

• Limiting results by date updated

Two ways to limit by date updated Basic Search Sidebar

Advanced Search Page

Why Use Advanced Search

• Indispensable in refining your searches to bring the relevant results to the first pages

• Fill in the box format means you don’t have to remember specific search commands

Finding legal materials using Google Scholar

Part 3:

What is Google Scholar?

• Specialized search that retrieves results from a separate database

• Includes: Articles, Theses, Books, Abstracts, and Court Opinions

• From academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other scholarly web sites

How to get to Google Scholar

• Go to: (http://scholar.google.com/)OR

• In Basic Google type in the search: scholar– Your first result will be for Google Scholar

Old “Look” for Google Scholar main page

Click here to try “modern look”

Link to Advanced Search is still here

New “modern look” for Google Scholar Main Page

Revert to “old venerable” look

Settings are still here, but link to Advanced Search is gone

Important Preferences

Default to search legal opinions and journals

Show access links for full text to up to three libraries with which you are affiliated.

Open results in a new window

Don’t forget to Save

What legal research material can I find here? And where do they come from?

Federal and State case law Legal journal articles Google’s own database Google also links to alternate sources for some

cases, such as Cornell’s LII, Justia and Public.Resource.org

Google Scholar Case CoverageU.S. State appellate and supreme Court case opinions

1950-present

U.S. Federal district, appellate, tax and bankruptcy court case opinions

1923-present

U.S. Supreme Court case opinions

1791-present

Search by Citation

Search by Party Name

Search by Judges Name in a particular State or Court

Scholarly Articles

Pros of Google Scholar for Legal Research

• Hyperlinked case citations• Fast and accurate search results• Relevancy as good or better than commercial

legal research services• “How Cited” tab provides links to cases and

scholarly documents that have cited your case• Set up Alerts• Send direct links to cases• It’s FREE

Cons of Google Scholar for Legal Research

• Search results based on Google’s system for ranking search results rather than actual importance of case

• Cannot easily tell if case is still good law.• No index tool• Statutes and Rules are not hyperlinked• Lacks some older cases

“Have fun and keep googling.”~Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a note on the new google.com (1998)

Resources• Official Google Blog (

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/)• Google Help Center (

http://support.google.com/?hl=en)• Nancy Backman’s Google Guide (

http://www.googleguide.com/)• Google for Lawyer’s by Carole Levitt and Mark Rosch• Google Hacks by Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest

More Resources• Google Scholar Help (

http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/help.html)• Advanced Scholar Search Tips (

http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/refinesearch.html)• Google Scholar Advanced Search (

http://scholar.google.com/advanced_scholar_search?hl=en&as_sdt=2,40)

• Google Scholar Advanced Search Help (http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/refinesearch.html)

Even More Resources• “Google Scholar Advanced Legal Research Tips” by

Josh Camson on Lawyerist.com http://lawyerist.com/google-scholar-advanced-legal-research-tips/

• “Advanced Search in Retreat” by Greg R. Notess in Information Today Online (http://www.infotoday.com/online/mar12/On-the-Net-Advanced-Search-in-Retreat.shtml)

Contact Information

Elizabeth Geesey HolmesLibrarian

Partridge Snow & Hahn LLPegh@psh.com

EGHresearch@gmail.comhttp://www.elizabethgeeseyholmes.com/

THANK YOUfor attending today’s Teleconference/Webcast

Please visit us online at www.ipe-sems.com for a complete list of upcoming learning opportunities or for more information.