3: Legal Research Preparation - Self Paced Lesson - Tertiary and Secondary Legal Materials - Subject Guide

There are a number of guides on the topic of legal research available online and in the Law Library.
Some of the Legal Research Guides available in the Law Library include:

These texts can help you further develop your understanding of legal materials and legal research, but are not necessary to read for this Lesson.
Be sure to check the Library Catalogue for the most up to date edition and new titles.

The Legal Research Guide provides a wealth of information that can assist you with legal research.
It is strongly encouraged that you bookmark the Law Library Subject Guide early in your studies as you will find referring back to it a helpful tool throughout the course of your studies.

The next part of this topic provides an outline of the Legal Research Process that will assist you in your research while studying at the Murdoch School of Law and Criminology.

Research Process:

Plan your research strategies
Determine your resources
Record your sources
Time management

Study & Research
Study & Research page on the Legal Research Guide has more detailed information.

Legal Research is Repetitive

Lexis Advance and Westlaw Australia are competitors in legal publishing.
Results in each database only include articles from those journals each publishes.

AustLII is a free database, so only includes articles for the journals published on that database.

This means that you will have to repeat your searches in each database for comprehensive research.

Keeping a record of where you have searched, and what search words and strings you have used is vital in legal research.

1. Analyse and define your topic

Step 1: Read and analyse your assignment

Step 2: Identify the key points/concepts that must be included

these concepts will help develop your assignment plan / layout

mind map your assignment layout to identify the research needed to source supporting documents, evidence, and examples

Step 3: Identify the words in the topic that will become your search words

See how to Mind Map and Plan Your Essay

Identify search words and synonyms

Read your Assignment question to identify the key facts and determine the search terms from these that can be used in your searching.
Determine the scope of your research - Western Australia, Australia, or worldwide.

To conduct comprehensive research, synonyms for each search term should be included in the search.
Databases will only search for the words you include in your search.

For example, if researching death from an assault, you could include the terms death, grievous bodily harm, kill, manslaughter, murder, and serious injury.
If you do not include these search terms, you will miss content that uses these terms, rather than only manslaughter.

Therefore, comprehensive searching requires creating lists of synonyms for the search words.
It is best to create a table, and list the synonyms for each key search term alphabetically, so that you don’t accidentally repeat words

As you research, you may identify more concepts and search words, or realise that some are not relevant to your topic.
So you may need to tweak your search words and search strings.

Where to start Research

If you do not know anything about a topic, begin your research by looking in legal encyclopaedia, and source definitions from legislation and case law.

Example:

Identify key term: migration agent

Check for meaning in legal dictionaries: definitions have references to defining cases and legislation

When searching for a phrase, enclose the words in double inverted commas: "migration agent".

Always search in the singular - not plural.

Lexis Advance Advanced Search: Secondary Materials template - use the Defined Terms search box.

Lexis Advance - Advanced Search: Cases - Use the Words and Phrases Judicially Considered search box.

Australian Law Dictionary from Oxford Reference Library.

Print dictionaries are located in the Law Library at R340 South Wing level 3.

Check for explanations in legal encyclopaedia: articles have references to defining cases and legislation

The Laws of Australia via Westlaw Australia
Halsbury’s Laws of Australia via Lexis Advance

The terms and concepts identified in this stage can be used to help develop a search strategy.

2. Plan your research

Your assignment layout will structure your research strategy

Overview With Analysis

Step 1: Find synonyms for the search words identified from the dictionaries and encyclopaedia

Read a legal encyclopaedia, or journal article, to identify further search terms

Step 2: Create search strings for searching databases - use Boolean connectors

Step 3: Gain an overview with analysis from textbooks and commentary (commentary is written by exerts in the subject area)

Use Library Search to search by key words, topic, title, or author

The most commonly used Commentary:
Lexis Advance Advanced Search: Secondary Materials template; Narrow results by: Content Type : Commentary
Westlaw Australia via Legislation Commentaries tab
CCH IntelliConnect Commentary is distributed under practice area headings

Detailed Commentary

Journal articles provide more detailed commentary on legal topics.

Articles sourced from Lexis Advance and Westlaw Australia are all peer reviewed.

* Library Search enables combined searching of many databases - mostly non-law databases.

Search by journal title (not article title) for law journals.

* Informit - Australian content

* Lexis Advance - Advanced Search: Secondary Materials template; Narrow results by:

Content Type: Journals
OR
Publication : CaseBase Journal Articles

* Westlaw Australia - Content Type: Secondary Sources Advanced Search

Primary Material - Legislation

* Legify links to the current authoritative version of all Australian legislation.

* Western Australian Legislation - Western Australian legislation.

* Federal Register of Legislation - Commonwealth and non-self-governing Territories' legislation.

More resources can be found in the Source Legislation Guide.

Check that Act is the current version.

Primary Material - Case Law

Databases to use to search for cases:

* Lexis Advance Advanced Search: Cases template

* Westlaw Australia - Content Type: Cases Advanced Search

* AustLII - Cases & Legislation search template

* Jade

More resources can be found in the Source Case Law Guide.

Check that law is still current

Google Scholar can be configured to provide links to Murdoch material.

Open Google Scholar.

Select the ☰ Menu in the top left of the screen

Select Settings from the menu

Select Library links from the menu

Type Murdoch University into the search box and click Search

Tick the box next to Murdoch University - Find it@Murdoch.

Now when you search for an article in Google Scholar, you will see a link to Murdoch if it is an article in our collection.

Research & Writing Preparation

3. Manage your resources

Information

By keeping a research record you can ensure that your research is comprehensive and thorough, and at the same time you can be more efficient as you can reduce duplication of searches - i.e. making sure you don't search the exact same thing twice.

Keep a record of:

search words
search strings
databases searched
information sources
complete AGLC citation for each book, article, case, act, etc.
pinpoint all quotations

Use a Reference Manager such as Endnote or Zotero, or a spreadsheet:

Research Strategy Template Copy this Legal Research Strategy and Assignment Plan

It is important to keep a record of your searches, as you need to repeat your search in each legal database.

Lexis Advance and Westlaw Australia are competitors in legal publishing.
Results in each database only include articles from those journals each publishes.

Westlaw has the publishing contract for authorised court reporting series.

AustLII and Jade publish open access legal content.

Articles from Lexis Advance, Westlaw, and AustLII are not included in Library Search results.

Library Search includes articles from Gale, HeinOnline, Kluwer, Oxford and ProQuest, although Library Search does not support sophisticated search strings.