Legal research guide: Secondary sources: Dictionaries & Encyclopaedia
Learn how to develop an effective search strategy and then use it to locate relevant secondary sources to support your research for law assignments.
Finding Dictionaries and Encyclopaedia
Find and use legal dictionaries and encyclopaedias to define legal terms and point you to key primary and secondary sources.
Australia
Use these to find definitions of legal terms and cases/legislation where terms were judicially defined.
- Encyclopaedic Australian Legal DictionaryOnline: Lexis Advance
- Halsbury's Laws of AustraliaOnline: Lexis Advance
- Laws of AustraliaOnline: Westlaw AU
- Halsbury's Laws of EnglandOnline: Lexis Advance
- CCH Macquarie Dictionary of LawBeasley Law Library level 2: 340.03 1996 CCH. (If it is required for a Unit, it will be located in the Beasley Law Library High Demand section).
- The Longman Dictionary of LawBeasley Law Library Main collection: 340.03 2007 LON (If it is required for a Unit, it will be located in the Beasley Law Library High Demand section).
- Australian Legal Words and PhrasesAvailable online through Lexis Advance. Use to find acts and cases in which legal terms are defined.
- Oxford English Dictionary OnlineFor standard word usage
- Australian Law Dictionary2018 3rd edition available Online
Also available at Beasley Law Library Main collection: 340.03 2010 AUS.
Other jurisdictions
- Stroud's judicial dictionary of words and phrases (UK)Available at Welshpool Offsite Storage (349.4103 2006 STR). Please submit request through OneSearch.
- Black's Law Dictionary (US)Westlaw (Secondary Sources link > TOOLS & RESOURCES menu) and Beasley Law Library Main collection 340.03 2004 BLA
- Black's Law dictionaryDefinitions of the terms and phrases of American and English jurisprudence, ancient and modern. Available at Beasley Law Library Main Collection 340.03 1979 BLA
- Ballentine's Law Dictionary (US)Lexis Advance - US Research subset
Secondary Materials link > Dictionaries > Ballentine's Law Dictionary, 3rd Edition link - American Jurisprudence (US)Available in print in Beasley Law Library Law Reports Collection (P.345.473).
Also available online in Lexis Advance - US Research subset: Secondary Materials > American Law Reports (ALR) link and Thomson Reuters Westlaw: Secondary Sources link > Jurisprudence & Encyclopedias link - Corpus Juris Secundum (US)Available at Welshpool Offsite Storage (P 345.473). Please submit request through OneSearch. Also available online in Thomson Reuters Westlaw: Secondary Sources link > Jurispudence & Encyclopedias link.
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