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Research Assistant Workshop : Researching Like a Pro

Research Assistant Workshop, June 3, 2024

The Glassmeyer Legal Flow Chart by Professor Sarah Glassmeyer

Research Strategies

Research Strategies include planning far in advance to gather material required to write your paper, tips include:

  1.  Schedule Time for Research.  Plan ahead when preparing to research your paper, scholarly research requires planning and includes time for reading books and legal articles on your topic.  You may also need to consider the time involved to obtain material through Document Delivery.  If the books and documents you need are off campus, it could take weeks to obtain them from another library.
  2. Organize your Research.   You will need to keep track of your research so you can refer to it later.  To do this keep a log of your research that you can easily access when needed.   Remember that you will need complete citations of the material that you've found.   You can use your log to refine your paper with additional research and analysis.
  3. Save a Copy of Your Online Research Strategies.   To refer to later when you may need to update your research. To keep track of when you did your research, make a note of the time and day that you did your research.
  4. Stay current by setting up alerts on Google, Lexis+, Westlaw Precision, it doesn't matter what service you use, as long as you are consistent.

 

TWO HELPFUL RESOURCES FOR ORGANIZING YOUR RESEARCH:

Brainstorming Tips

Brainstorming tips

Before you go online:

1.  Decide what type of resources would most likely have the information you seek

2.  Don't "just google," think about a search strategy

3.  Brainstorm for keywords, synonyms, field descriptors, try an online thesaurus

4.  If you are researching history, think about how people wrote & spoke during that time when you brainstorm for terms

5.  Don't forget to use acronyms in your search, but also use the full name:  For example: NOAA or (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration)

6.  Find the resource that you need rather than trying to make the resource you are comfortable with be the source you use

7. Learn to read a statute, find the related regulations.  Most state and federal agencies provide links to relevant statutes and regulations on their Website, often under a tab titled "laws and regulations" or "government" many also post proposed regulations and agency opinions on their website

 

 

 

Boolean Logic & Field Restrictions

BOOLEAN OPERATORS: connect your search terms in narrower or broader terms.  Common operators are:  AND, OR, NEAR and BUT NOT.  To locate the boolean operators in a database, select the help function.

 

Connectors and Expanders

&
AND
/s
In same sentence
or
OR
+s
Preceding within sentence
/p
In same paragraph
""
Phrase
+p
Preceding within paragraph
%
But not
/n
Within n terms of
!
Root expander
+n
Preceding within n terms of
*
Universal character
#
Prefix to turn off plurals and equivalent

FIELD OPERATORS: You can use field restrictions to limit your search to certain portion of the document; for example, the title, author or subject tags.  What field operators look like and which ones you select depends on the database.  Most "help" tabs will explain how to use a field restriction in their database.  Often databases will also have tutorials on advanced searching.

Brainstorming tools

Brainstorming or mind mapping tools can be used to understand student thinking, share ideas, or get a classroom project started.

 

Staying Current with Alerts

The following links provide directions on how to set up an alert in Google Alerts, Lexis Advance & Westlawnext.

Powerpoint slides

Subjects: Law