Information Skills Checklist for Research Students<br> in the Law School

This webpage is designed as a quick guide to get you thinking about the range of information resources available and ways of improving your information-seeking skills.

The Legal Research Guide provides links to databases and internet sites relevant to the study of law. It is a good starting point for finding legal information.

If you would like more guidance on any of these issues, or on research tools and techniques which are specific to your discipline, please contact your Research Information Service librarian.

Information Skills and Resources

Primary and Secondary Resources — Using Library Catalogues— Legal Research Texts — Legal Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias — Looseleaf Services — Finding Journal Articles — Cited Reference Searching — Legal Abbreviations — Legislation — Case Law — Case Citators — Finding Newspaper Articles— Finding Theses — Finding Web Resources — People — Document Delivery — Organising Your Information — Keeping up to Date

When carrying out legal research it is generally better to start with secondary sources such as textbooks, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, looseleaf services, journal articles and case citators. These help provide a commentary of the law and will often refer you to useful references or citations. Primary sources are the authoritative sources of law as made by law making bodies. They include case law and legislation.

In many disciplines such as law, books are a major source of information. Library catalogues are the traditional way of locating books. But which catalogue do you use? And how do you search library catalogues effectively.

See the UQ Library's How to Guide on Searching Library Catalogues.

The library holds several text books on legal research which describe various legal resources and research techniques in more depth. The following texts are highly recommended:

A practical guide to legal research, 2nd ed by Milne and Tucker (2010) (Call no: KU47.M566 2010)
Concise legal research, 6th ed by Watt (2009) (Call no: KU47.W37 2009)
Nemes and Coss' Effective legal research, 5th ed by Bott and Talbot-Stokes (2012) (Call no: KU47 .N49 2012)
Laying down the law, 8th ed by Cook et al (2012) (Call no: KU47.L38 2012)
Legal research technique by Enright and Sidorko (2002) (Call no: KU47.E67 2002)
Researching and writing in law, 3rd ed by Hutchinson (2010) (Call no: KU47 .H884 2010)

Legal Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias are a great starting point for legal research. Legal dictionaries provide definitions or sources of definitions from legal sources. They can also help you clarify terms and identify keywords for searching. Encyclopaedias provide a succinct and systematic commentary on various legal subject areas. These resources are available via the Legal Research Guide.

Looseleaf services are collections of integrated resources, each covering a specific area of the law. They include detailed commentaries on key issues in the area, often have the full text of key cases and legislation on the subject, and keep the reader up-to-date with recent developments in the field.

Most current looseleaf services are available online. For details check the Library Catalogue by searching on the keyword looseleaf together with the broad area of law you are researching.

Journal articles provide a commentary on law. They are written by experts, about recent issues and developments.

To find journal articles on a topic, search a database. Relevant Australian databases include AGIS Plus Text, CaseBase, APA full text, Westlaw AU, and LexisNexis AU. For international journal articles try Westlaw international, Lexis.com, and HeinOnline. Click here for a comprehensive list of law databases.

The Law Online Tutorial provides detailed information on searching for journal articles.

For hints on keywords and conducting an effective search strategy consult the guide to planning your research on the Law Online Tutorial’s guide.

Another way of improving your results is to search by cited references.

The principle is simple: if there is a book or article which is fundamental to your research topic, it may be helpful to find later publications which cite that book or article. There is also the traditional process of finding one important reference on the topic, reading that, and following up the references that it cites. And those references will cite other references for you to investigate.

See the UQ Library How-To Guide on Cited Reference Searching.

Specialist sources are available to help decipher legal acronyms or abbreviations. Links to these resources are also available via the Legal Research Guide.

The Legal Research Guide provides online links to electronic copies of legislation (both statutes and statutory instruments) organised by jurisdiction. The electronic version of the legislation tends to be the most current. While historically the print copy has been the authorised version, increasingly the electronic version is also being recognised as authoritative. Print legislation is available in the Reports and Statutes section of the Library (level 4).

Case Law is law developed by the courts. Some legal decisions are recorded and published in law reports. These decisions are known as ‘reported decisions’. Not all cases are reported – only those which raise significant points of law.

Cases can be reported in more than one report or series. All Australian jurisdictions have an official or ‘authorised’ series of law reports. Where available, cite from an authorised version.

For more information, consult the Law Online Tutorial.

Case citators (such as CaseBase, FirstPoint and KeyCite) are an effective way to research case law.

They will help you determine:

The correct citation for a case.
If the case has been reported in more than one series of reports.
Whether any later cases have considered the case.
Which earlier cases were considered by the case.

For more information see the Law Online Tutorial.

Researchers used to spend years of their lives laboriously scanning through newspapers in their microfilm or print formats. In some cases, this is still the only option.

Fortunately, most recently published newspaper articles can be searched via the web, although not always for free. Increasingly, older newspapers are also being digitised and turned into searchable databases (such as Factiva), some of which are subscription-only resources, while others are available free online.

See the UQ Library How-To Guide on News and Newspapers.

It is generally the case that the best theses eventually get published as books or journal articles. Nonetheless there is often useful information in theses which has not (or not yet) been published elsewhere.

See the UQ Library How-To Guide on Finding Theses.

There is no easy way to navigate the wealth of resources now available on the web. Subject gateways like WebLaw can help to locate quality resources.

There are smarter ways of searching Google, by limiting your search to specific domains such as .edu or .gov.au. See the UQ Library How-To Guide on Internet (Web) Searching.

You should be aware of how to access Google Scholar via the UQ Library's proxy server, so that you can access subscription-only resources more easily when using Google Scholar. If you are off campus, always access Google Scholar via this link.

People are important sources of information. Your supervisor, your Research Information Service librarian and your fellow students will all be able to provide assistance in different ways.

It is often helpful to make contact with researchers at other institutions who are working in the same area. Developing these contacts can be difficult, but blogs, discussion lists (listservs) and attendance at conferences can help.

Inevitably you will identify books and journals that you need which are not available in the UQ Library. Our document delivery service will try to obtain these for you.

An important part of developing your research proposal is assessing the feasibility of gaining access to the material that you will need for your research. Do not make the mistake of assuming that the Library can obtain anything and everything for you. Some material is not available for loan and too fragile (or too voluminous) to copy. Researchers sometimes have to travel to repositories elsewhere in Australia or overseas to study source materials.

When you have identified useful references, how will you store and organise them?

The library has a site licence for EndNote, a software package that allows you to create a personal database of references. It includes facilities to store electronic copies of your references and to store your working notes on the references (although some would argue that EndNote is not a very good notes manager).

EndNote can also work with Microsoft Word to generate bibliographies in your thesis or other publications. However, it has to be said that it struggles to cope with the complex footnote referencing styles such as the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC3).

Alerting services help you keep up to date with: