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Legal research guide: Torts: How to search

Locate resources, including case law, legislation, journal articles and commentary relevant to the study of the law of tort.

Develop a search strategy

  1. Identify key concepts, words & phrases on your topic.
  2. Identify alternative search words (synonyms) - use dictionaries & encyclopaedias for this.
  3. Find introductory information to make sure you are using the right words - encyclopaedias are the best place to start.
  4. Create relationships between words & phrases using search operators (Boolean) - AND, OR, NOT and quotes around phrases. For more information on Booleans, watch the short "Pirates and Ninjas" video to the right.. 
  5. Select the resources to search.
  6. Check the search tips in each database - they are similar but different across databases.
  7. Depending on the results, refine the search if necessary.
  8. Evaluate the reliability of sources found.

For some more guidance on developing a search strategy, have a look at our Composing a Search Library Guide. It provides a lot of information and guidance on how to conduct effective searches. This Library Guide also includes a "search composer", that you can use to build your search on any research question. To compose your search just follow the prompts / steps. 

Want More?

Check out the Libguide called Develop a search strategy from Monash University Library. 

The Legal Research Process: 

Legal Research is very specialised, as it involves seeking a combination of sources: primary sources and secondary sources. When you have found suitable secondary sources of information, such a books, journal articles etc, it is important to keep certain things in mind. For instance, secondary sources will make reference to certain primary sources, such as Legislation and Cases. When this happens, you need to seek out those primary sources. You need to consider whether the primary sources referred to in the secondary sources are still good law and current. Read through the infographic below to find out more about the Legal Research process:       

Using CCH iKnowConnect

You can lean more about using this Database, by having a look at the following Guides:

This short video, provides some more navigation tips. Watch this video for some pro searching tips!

How to search using Boolean

To help refine your keyword searches it is recommended that you use Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT).  These operators help connect your search terms and are used to broaden or narrow your search results. Watch this video to find out how to use Boolean Operators:

 

Banner image source: Images 1, 3, 4, 5 licensed under a CC0 Public Domain license. Image 2 by Jürgen Schoner, licensed under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license. ​

CONTENT LICENCE

 Except for logos, Canva designs or where otherwise indicated, content in this guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence.