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Legal research guide: Secondary sources: Articles considering legislation

Learn how to develop an effective search strategy and then use it to locate relevant secondary sources to support your research for law assignments.

A step by step guide to locating articles considering legislation in two key databases.

Lexis+ journal articles considering legislation

  1. Go to Lexis+
  2. Below the search bar, click Advanced Search and, select Secondary Materials from the drop-down menu.
  3. Enter the Legislation title in the Legislation Title field and the section number into the Provision Name/Number field and click the search button (which is located down the bottom of the page).
  4. This locates all types of secondary sources and may include some journal articles.
  5. If the full text of the article is not present, then follow the instructions below under What if it's Not There!

You can also use LawNow Legislation to find secondary materials, such as journal articles, in relation to a section of an Act. 

  1. Select the Jurisdiction you require from the Jurisdictions Homepage list.
  2. Select All Acts by Title in the Acts column.
  3. Browse alphabetically for the Act you wish to research.
  4. Select the relevant Act you are researching.
  5. Scroll down to the section / provision you are interested in.
  6. Click on the blue View Legislation Citator link to display Cases citing the provision - NB: any journal articles are listed in the References to this item area. Bonus: When you conduct this search, you may also be able to find relevant Cases in relation to the section!

Westlaw AU journal articles considering legislation

  1. Go to Westlaw AU
  2. Click on the All Secondary Sources link on the database home page.
  3. Select the Advanced link located to the right of the single search box.
  4. Scroll down to the bottom of the Advanced search form and enter the title of the Legislation in the Legislation Cited (Title) field (eg: criminal code wa) and the legislative provision in the Legislation Cited (Provision) field (eg: 27).
  5. Browse the results list for relevant articles.

Some results will be full text while others will be Australian Legal Journal Index (ALJI) abstracts. To locate the articles mentioned in these abstracts then follow the instructions below under What if it's Not There!  

What if it's not there!

If you find a reference to the perfect journal article in a database, as often happens in CaseBase, for example, here is the process you use to check if full text is available somewhere, anywhere!

  1. Make a note of the full citation. For example, Aboriginal land rights after Mabo (1992) 66 LIJ 1105.
  2. Identify the full title of the journal from the abbreviation. In this example LIJ  is the abbreviation representing the full title of the journal. To find the full title you will need to check an abbreviations list.
  3. If you are in Lexis+, you can hover over the abbreviation to see the full title of the journal. In this example, LIJ is Law Institute Journal (Vic).
  4. To help you decipher abbreviations, you can use either the Legal Research Guide: Abbreviations or Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations and search By Abbreviation. In this instance, if you knew the publication was from Victoria,  that would help in locating the correct title in Cardiff.
  5. Go to OneSearch and enter the title of the journal e.g. Law Institute Journal. Use the drop down menu to limit the search to Journal titles.
  6. If you find an entry for the journal, click on Available at to see print volumes held or go to the Full text availability section, to see if an online version is available. In this case the journal is available on the shelf and online. The print holdings indicate that volume 66 (1992) is available.
  7. This article would be located in the Law Journals collection of the Beasley Law library. Locate volume 66, page 1105, and read or photocopy the article.

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