Getting Started with Research — Resources for Law Review Notes & Comments and Other Law School Papers
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Introduction
This notebook accompanies presentations on researching law review notes and comments. The presentations, to the junior staff of the University of San Francisco Law Review, took place on September 29 & October 1, 2008.
We encourage USF law students working on law review notes and comments, or on any scholarly research, to ask a Zief Librarian for personalized advice about research strategies and techniques. Getting Started
Map out a tentative research plan before you plunge in. Mind-mapping software can help you brainstorm, plan, and keep track of your research. As your research progresses, keep track of the sources you checked and the searches you ran
Paths to Consider
For most projects, you'll want to —
Treatises and Scholarly Books — Major Finding Tools & Techniques
Ignacio — for books at USF. Try keyword and subject searches
WorldCat — for books at public and academic libraries worldwide. Start with keyword or subject searches
Find A Treatise Guide from Georgetown Law Library. This guide lists treatises and major study guides for many areas of law. It says whether treatises are available on Lexis or Westlaw, and gives Georgetown's shelving locations for print copies. Use Ignacio, or ask a Zief Librarian to see if USF has the same books. (We probably do!)
Legal Research Guides — from Univ. of Washington's Gallagher Law Library. The guides deal with a variety of legal topics and list treatises and practice guides, along with other useful research tools and tips. The guides give the Gallagher Law Library's shelving locations. Use Ignacio, or ask a Zief Librarian to see if USF has the same books. (We probably do!)
Google Book Search — for searching the full text of books / searching "within the book."
Existing Cases & Statutes as Springboards
Cases
Statutes
Scholarly Legal Articles
Try any or all of the following. The more different tools and search techniques you use, the more useful information you will find. Useful search techniques might include key word searches, subject (or "descriptor") searches, and case-name and statute-name searches. More information about these tools is in the Zief Library Finding Law Review Articles research guide.
HeinOnline — Law Journal Library.
This is the largest full-text source for law review articles. You can search it directly, or use it to pull up the full text of articles for which other sources gave only the citations. Journals and Law Reviews (full text) on Westlaw
or Law Reviews, Combined (full text) on Lexis Try both "terms and connectors" and natural language searching. Also try searching for your terms in the Title "field." Index to Legal Periodicals on Westlaw
or Index to Legal Periodicals on Lexis or Index to Legal Periodicals direct from the publisher. (Unlike the versions on Lexis and Westlaw, this version goes back to 1908.) Legal Resource Index on Westlaw
or Legal Resource Index on Lexis or Legal Resource Index (aka "LegalTrac") direct from the publisher Dissertations
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. Abstracts and previews are available to the USF community for free. There is a fee for downloading PDFs or ordering a paper copies. If you'd prefer to avoid the fee, ask a Zief reference librarian whether an interlibrary loan might be possible.
Scholarly Articles in Other Fields
If your topic is interdisciplinary, look for articles — especially articles from "peer reviewed" journals for the field in question.
If you get a citation to the article without a link to the full text, use the Gleeson Library Journal Finder to see if USF has the journal in question. (Search using the title of the journal, not the title of the article.) Start with:
Selected Field-Specific Tools from USF's Gleeson Library
These are a few of the scores of article-finding tools available from Gleeson Library. Each is devoted to a single discipline. For more choices, see Gleeson Library's Start Your Research page. Selected Multi-Disciplinary Article-Finding Tools
These will often include articles from both scholarly and non-scholarly sources.
Legislative History
Consider legislative history research when you would like more information on the background of a statute that is central to your topic. Ask a Zief Librarian for advice specific to your topic.
Federal Legislative History
Two useful starting-places are:
California Legislative History
California legislative history is possible, but much more difficult and time consuming. Review the Zief Library research guide Finding California Legislative History, and schedule a consultation with a Zief reference librarian. Congressional Research Service Reports
If your topic touches on any issue involving any aspect of public policy, consider searching for a Congressional Research Service report. These are reports prepared for members of Congress by subject experts at the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service. They are founded on thorough research and contain useful citations to other reliable information. Source:
Statistical Data
If a newspaper story or article cites or alludes to a recent statistic or statistical study, try a Google (or similar) search to see if the primary study is available in full text.
Scholarly articles also report on researchers’ statistical studies, so consider looking for an article using one of the article-finding tools listed above in the “Scholarly articles in other disciplines” section. Also, there are dozens of tools for finding reliable statistical data. Here are a few: Basic Statistical Information
More Detailed Sources of Statistical Information
This is just a small selection. If none of these suits your needs, speak to a Zief reference librarian.
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