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Legal Research
For the Discover the Law certificate

Annelise Sklar
Librarian for Political Science,
Law & Society, International
Government Information

What is the law?
“The Law” is “the whole system or set of rules
made by the government of a town, state, country,
etc.” (Merriam-Webster) “to govern the conduct of
the people of
an organization,
community, society,
or nation” (Wex/Nolo)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/law
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/law

When Congress makes a law,
it’s called _______________________________.

An executive agency makes
_______________________________________.

When a court interprets a law
it’s called _______________________________.

Group activity – 5 minutes
1. Go to http://ucsd.libguides.com/sls
2. Go to the tab that matches your group number.
3. Examine the physical documents and the links on the guide.
– What are the titles of the documents you have?
– What branch of government do they represent?
– Describe the function of the documents. What kind of information is
included?
– What are some of the similarities you notice between the different
versions of the documents? Differences?

1. Choose your research question,
hypothesis, or topic and keywords
• Develop your research
question, hypothesis, or thesis
statement—or define your
specific case
– How is Title IX of the Education
Amendments of 1972 (20
U.S.C.A. §§ 1681 et seq.) applied
to sex discrimination in
educational environments?

• Break that statement into key
concepts—don’t forget to think
about jurisdiction(s) that apply,
– Education
– sex discrimination
– united states

• Think of other ways to phrase
those concepts. Use synonyms.
Consider more specific words (to
narrow your focus) or more
general terms (to expand your
search), e.g.
– Education: schools, universities,
colleges...
– Sex: gender, identity...
– Discrimination: civil rights...
– Jurisdiction: United States – all
federal, maybe individual states

2. Choose tools that might be useful
for this project.
• You want a variety of
– Background sources
– Exhibits or Evidence sources
– Argument sources
– Method or Theory sources
• Each tool helps you find a specific,
limited kind and amount of information.
• Knowing which tools might help you find
what you're looking for will save you lots
of time.

The Legal Research Processcredit: Sarah Gotschall

Books (treatises, hornbooks)
Treatises are books or sets of books that cover a
single legal topic in depth. Hornbooks are one-
volume treatises, usually written for law students.
Look in an online library catalog like
(UC San Diego’s library catalog)
• Tip: Many of the Library’s books are now ebooks.
Use to find the link.
• Tip: Not enough at UC San Diego, or the book you
want checked out?
– Try to request books from other San
Diego libraries
– Try to request books from other
University of California libraries

Law Reviews
The scholarly journals of the legal world
• Use these to
– Get background info
– Understand the legal discourse
– Save yourself time
• Avoid reinventing the wheel compiling primary sources
• Discover other secondary sources on your topic

Primary Sources (Primary Authority)
• Legislation
– Bills (proposed laws)
– Statutes (passed laws)
– US Code, state codes (laws arranged by subject)
• Court opinions
• Regulations
– Federal Register
– Code of Federal Regulations

Other “Primary” Sources
Primary sources are materials that
document the event when it happened—
or as close to when it happened as
possible.
Items in the Library are cataloged in
and other resources are
available in specialized databases.
Examples include:
• News: particularly good for accounts of
sensational cases
• Government publications and official
documents
• First person accounts: diaries, letters,
oral histories, blogs…

Legal Databases
The Library has three major databases for finding law
reviews and primary source material.
• Westlaw Next
– Best bet for appellate level cases, law reviews, and other
secondary sources. Has proprietary commentary.
• Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic)
– Best bet for appellate level cases, law reviews, and some
other secondary sources. Has proprietary commentary.
• HeinOnline
– Best bet for primary sources and law reviews

Before you get started
• The licenses for most of our research tools
require that users are on UCSD IP addresses
– Are you on the wireless network at UCSD?
• Make sure you’re using the UCSD-PROTECTED network.
– Are you off-campus?
• Make sure you’re using the VPN

3. Choose your search strategies for
each research tool.
• In most databases, you can combine terms
with and (both terms must appear in the
hit)and or (one term must appear in the hit—for
synonyms or evenly weighted terms)
– education and discrimination; sex or gender
• In many databases, you can use a symbol such as
* or ! to take the place of letters to get hits with
multiple endings of a word
– sex*
• In many databases, you can combine words
together into phrases using quotation marks
• Example search:
(sex* or gender) and discrimination and education

4. Refine your search with limits.
• Most databases have some sort of limits
you can apply, for example:
– date ranges
– publication types (e.g., cases, statutes,
regulations, secondary sources, etc.)
– languages
– peer reviewed articles
• When you find good hits, look at the subject headings. These are controlled
vocabulary assigned to describe the topic in the database. Also skim the abstracts
for additional keywords. Try running new searches using those terms.
• Find more citations by looking at the bibliography/cited references of sources you
find. Sometimes these citations are included in the database. (Also read the
literature review in the article itself.)
• Find more citations by looking at sources that cite the sources you find. Look for a
times cited link in the database. (If your database doesn’t have this, Google
Scholar does.) This is an especially good way to find core articles (and theory!) on
your topic.

5. Get the actual item.
• If the full text isn’t available in your search
results. Look for the button.
• Link to full text if available.
• No full text?
– Try for the print
• No UCSD access at all?
– You can usually request the item from another
library using the link.
– For books, try or

6. Get the citation information. You
need this for your bibliography.
You list the works you cite so that readers
interested in your research can find and read the
resources you used to draw your conclusions.
• Email records to yourself as a backup.
• Some databases can export the citation in a
specific format (e.g. APA, Chicago, MLA)
• Use Zotero, EndNote Web, or Mendeley to
manage, store, and format your citations

7. Evaluate the items you find.
• Does it answer the
question?
• What are the
author’s credentials?
– And what sources do
they cite?
• Is the source current
enough for the kind
of research you're
doing?

8. Try different tools & repeat
until you have enough
to answer your question!
• Check the help screens or guides to
each database for specifics on
combining your terms and whether your
results are ranked by date or relevance.
• When you find good hits, look at the
subject headings/descriptors. Try
running new searches using those
terms.

Try it yourself – 5 minutes
• Divde back into 3 groups
1: Search Nexis Uni
2: Search Westlaw
3: Search Google Scholar
• Keywords:
– (sex* or gender) and discrimination and education
• Click on the top listed case.
• Questions:
1. What is the citation?
2. What jurisdiction is the case?
3. Is the case still good law?
4. Can you link to another case that cites this case?

To Recap
1. Start with a question or topic.
2. Think about where the answer—or a
piece of the puzzle—might have been
articulated.
3. Choose tools that will help you find
those publications/information
sources.
4. Use those tools to find information
you can use.
5. Repeat.

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