2. PURPOSE OF SESSION
Look at a few of the subscription databases with
some possible topics you might use for your research
proposal
Useful websites freely available on the Internet-places
to start for a literature search or research proposal
pertaining to EU law
Briefly look at SUMMON-for multi-database
searching
3. LEGAL WRITING AND EFFECTIVE LITERATURE
SEARCHING
Let‟s start by looking at some useful titles that
we have in the library for legal writing
“Research and Writing in Law”-Hutchinson
“How to Write Law Essays”-Strong
“How to Write Better Law Essays”-Foster
4. USE „LEGAL COMPOSITION‟ AS THE SUBJECT
KEYWORDS
By doing a SUBJECT
KEYWORD search on
the catalogue you will
get a good number of
books on legal
writing
5. TRY THIS TITLE
There is
only 1 copy
but I have
more on
order!
6. .......AND A FEW MORE!!!!!!!
ALL ON THE LIBRARY CATALOGUE
Really useful Excellent Book by Peter Clinch
by John
Knowles
Legal
Writing
by
Higgins
7. EFFECTIVE LITERATURE SEARCHING
It helps to make a plan first as it may take much
longer to do your literature search than you
anticipated!
You may also need to visit other libraries and/or
order books /journal articles through Inter-library
Loan
Not everything can be found on the Internet!
8. THE PLAN
It may seem silly to plan the stages of your
search by resorting to a flowchart but a visual
image may help to get you organised,
prioritising the stages involved in the research
and reminding you what there is left to do!
9. THE PLAN
You may want to start by searching for some
general background information and then
move to the more specific and current
information
Start thinking about specifc subject keywords
that you would use when structuring your
search strategies
Remember alternative terms and spellings eg
labour/labor, euthanasia/assisted suicide
10. THE INTERNET
The Internet may be the quickest and most
effective tool for accessing EU publications as
more and more documents are being made
available online. The EU‟s own website Europa
http://europa.eu/index_en.htm
is the obvious place to start but many find it diificult
to navigate so you may find it easier to search
using a search engine such as Google.However.....
11. GOOGLE OR ADVANCED SEARCH GOOGLE?
COMPARE BASIC GOOGLE AND ADVANCED
Advanced
allows for
numerous
refinement
s
Beware of the
shortcomings of a
Basic Google
search
15. ZETOC ALERTS-AVAILABLE FROM THE
DATABASES LISTINGS(MY UNIHUB)
Zetoc provides access to the British Library‟s Electronic Table
of Contents of around 20,000 current journals published each
year
Database covers 1993 to date and is updated daily
Includes an email alerting service to enable you to stay up to
date with relevant new articles and papers in your area of
research
16. ZETOC ALERT HOMEPAGE
Select Middlesex from the
universities list and click
GO. Then you will be asked
for your network log in
17. CREATE AN ACCOUNT
Create your account
with your email
address. Click
create.Then you can
add the journals you
wish to be alerted about
18. SETTING UP ALERTS
The alert can be set up
for contents lists of
several journal titles and
also for TITLE Keyword
searches
19. TIME PERIOD
You can have a number of alerts for contents
lists or article keywords and add them or make
changes as required
They are set up for 1 year and require renewing
after that period
Email alerts will be sent to whenever the
British Library database is updated with new
issues and articles relevant to your search
21. ONLINE JOURNALS-APPEAR ON THE CATALOGUE
AND CAN SEARCHED AS FOR A TITLE
The record
links directly
to the e-
version.
Check the
coverage
details to see
the format
22. E BOOKS ALSO APPEAR ON THE CATALOGUE AND
CAN BE SEARCHED AS FOR A BOOK
23. ACCESSING E BOOKS AND ONLINE
JOURNALS-
Access for all online or electronic resources to
which Learning resources subscribes will
requite a log in
This is to identify users as Middlesex students
or staff and therefore eligible under the user
licence
At some point then a log in screen will appear
36. SUMMON-ALLOWS YOU TO SEARCH
VARIOUS DATABASES SIMULTANEOUSLY
Can do a Basic
or Advanced
search but the
latter gives you
more opportunity
to narrow /refine
the search
38. RESULTS-KEEP REFINING AND UPDATING
WITH MORE SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS
Can refine by
Change the date, type of
using the
publication, subject terms
sidebar and
to get fewer and more
changing
meaningful results
date, pub type
etc
51. USING TERMS AND CONNECTORS FOR
FUNCTIONALITY AND EFFICIENT SEARCHING
Enter phrase in
inverted commas and
ask it to search for this
phrase in the same
sentence as eu-
contextual searching
52. RESULTS
Scroll down the
results as they
appear in the
sidebar and read
the abtract which
describes the
text of the article
62. FILTER BY PUBLICATION TYPE AND
CONTENT AND THEN CLICK ON MORE
SOURCES
For pub type I
chose legal journals
and for topics I
chose all of
EU, Immigration
and
Nationality, Intellec
tual Poperty and
International Law