Jennie Wilson and Catherine Parkin

Academic Librarians for Law

The Library: Advanced

Legal research skills

Today’s Session

• Subject pages

• Finding journal articles

• Advanced search techniques /Boolean searching

• Current awareness

• Using other libraries

• 3 main parts to the session, each with an exercise

attached

• 1. Planning your search

• 2. Conducting your search

• 3. Evaluating your search results

Library Subject Pages

• Library Online > Resources > For Your Subject >

Law

• Acts as subject gateway providing links to useful

websites and legal resources

• Broken down into useful sections, such as Legal

Citation, Legal Research, Non-UK Legal Sources etc

• Constantly updated by the Academic Librarian

http://libguides.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/law

Journal Articles

• Periodicals – academic, practitioner, weeklies

• Give insight into the significance of a case and

relate it to other cases and decisions

• Discuss the issues surrounding a law

• You need to know which journal it was published in

and which volume (and issue) number

• Many available electronically from off-campus

• Printed ones - shelved separately from the books,

within the Law Collection - shelved alphabetically by

journal title

Journal Articles

• Searching for articles in legal databases

• Two main legal databases

• Westlaw – journal index plus around 60 full-text

journals

• Lexis Library - journal index plus around 60 full-text

journals

• Each one has different journals

• Each database has some journals it has full access

to and some where it only has an abstract

•

Define your topic

• Note down keywords/phrases that describe your topic

• Write down any synonyms or related terms

• Note down any variations in spelling or American terms

• Decide on the time span involved. How far back do you need to look for relevant information?

• You may also want to consider whether you want to limit your search to a particular geographical area

• Your final list of keywords and phrases - or search terms - will help you make the best use of the databases

Keywords-example

“What factors affect adolescents’ fear of crime?”

• Break down into concepts or keywords.

• Concept 1. “factors”

• Concept 2. “adolescents”

• Concept 3. “fear of crime”

Synonyms/related terms

• Concept 1. “factors”

causes, reasons

• Concept 2. “adolescents”

youths, young people, teenagers

• Concept 3. “fear of crime”

use specific crimes, such as mugging, robbery,

etc?

Good idea to search for just one of your concepts to begin with

Boolean Logic

Boolean Logic - process of linking

concepts in order to narrow or expand a

search

• AND links two or more terms and

narrows a search, retrieving only

references containing at least one

term from each concept

• OR links two or more terms and

expands or broadens a search

retrieving all references containing at

least one of the search concepts

entered

• NOT narrows a search by removing

all references that contain a

particular word or phrase

• Individual task- 5 mins.

• Using the sheets provided make a note of

your topic and break down into “key words”.

• Consider any synonyms that might help and

write these down also.

• Design your search strategy using the

concepts and synonyms, and Boolean

operators (and, or, not)/truncation

symbols etc.

Task 1: Planning your search strategy

• Don’t just stick to one database

• Westlaw has some journals which Lexis doesn’t

(and vice versa)

• Also lots more relevant information in other

databases, e.g.

• Proquest

• Science Direct

• Academic Search Complete

• ETHOS (good for finding dissertations)

Exploring other resources

Examples

Westlaw

• Journals

• Simple free text search –” Consumer credit agreements”

• Then advanced keyword search –” Consumer credit

agreements

• Proquest Journals

• Do simple search

• “war on terror”

• Limit location to UK

• Limit to scholarly journals

• A Library search engine providing fast, easy access to many Library resources in a single search.

• Some resources; in particular Westlaw and Lexis, are not yet searchable on Discover.

• Click on Geography from the menu on the left side of the results screen to limit your search to the UK

http://libraryonline.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/pages/home

“Human Rights Act” AND defamation

In results use menu on left to limit to Great Britain

Use DISCOVER

• Infotrac Newsstand – over 1,000 newspapers,

including local press. No images. Can create

alerts. Some coverage goes back 20 years.

• Press Display - Over 2700 news titles from 100

countries. You can search and view content and

visual layout of publications. 1 year back issue

coverage. App for Android and IoS.

http://libguides.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/resources/news_resources

Using newspapers

• Individual task- 10 mins.

• Choose one of the databases we have

looked at during the session

• Search the database using the search

strategy you created in the last task

• See if you can find any relevant articles –I’ll

come round to see how you’re getting on

Task 2 : Searching for literature

• Ever found a potentially useful article via a database, but could

only view the abstract?

• DID YOU KNOW we often have access to the article through

another provider!

• Finding an article when you know the name of the journal

• Library Homepage> Resources> Journals > Ejournals A-Z

• Type the title of the journal in the search box e.g. Family Law

• Choose the version of the journal you want

(content is the same from each publisher, just

make sure they have the year you want)

Finding specific journal articles

Search alerts

• Set up an account on Discover to use alerts

• Google Scholar offers email alerts

• Run a search and look for the Create alert

icon to send results to your email account

• ZETOC is a comprehensive research

database. Set up personalised email Zetoc

Alerts or RSS feeds to track the latest articles

or journal titles related to your interests

Citation alerts

• Search for an article with Google Scholar. In the bottom left of the

article's citation will be a Cited by field.

• Once you view the articles that cite your original search you can create

alert. It will confirm your Alert query and email address before you can

create the alert.

• Other options for citation searching are Scopus, and Web of

Knowledge. You can search these databases for articles

that cite a known author or work

• During your research, you need to source, evaluate

and synthesise literature from a variety of sources

• The emphasis should be on using quality information

rather than just a large quantity of information

• You need to decide which literature to include

• So -before using any literature in your research you should

evaluate its worth

• Group Exercise- 5 mins

• Working in pairs, select one of the items you found whilst

searching

• Work through the evaluation checklist provided

Task 3 : Evaluating your literature

Using Other Libraries

• SCONUL Access – access to other university libraries

• Apply online at www.sconul.ac.uk

• Access to approx 100 different university libraries in the UK

• Inter-Library Loan –borrow books and get sent journal

articles posted to you

• Order online via Library tab on MyBeckett

• Get a form from the Library Help Desk and hand in there

• £2 per item

Where to go for Help in the Library

• Library Webpages

• Help and Information Point

• Email or Chat via Library

Webpages > Contact us

Academic Librarians for Law

• Catherine Parkin and Jennie

Wilson

parkin.wilson@leedsbeckett.ac.uk