Welcome to the Legal Studies subject library guide!
Starting Points for LEST Research
Legal researchers gather and synthesize resources from a variety of places. Where you start your research will depend on your topic. Nevertheless, it's a good idea to use these resources to start your search:
- WorldCat/Books+ - This links to our library catalog and includes materials like eBooks, print books, theses, dissertations, videos, music recordings, and much more. Books+ also searches libraries around the world. Start with a simple keyword search.
- Databases - Searching individual databases returns better results than using Library Search. Places to start include:
- Academic Search Ultimate - Use this as a starting point to see which academic journals have published content related to your topic. Not seeing results? Expand your search using the link to "Choose Databases" and select all of the databases before searching for your keywords.
- JSTOR - Humanities publications are the main focus of JSTOR collections. Find books, journal articles, and other content. Use keywords to narrow your search or try the Text Analyzer to find items related to a PDF version of an existing article.
- HEIN Online - This specialized database focuses on reviews, cases, decisions, and articles from legal journals.
- Nexis Uni - This contains federal and state codes, case law, and a multitude of news, business, and legal sources.
Subject Terms and Keywords
As you review the individual items you have found during your search, you may notice that you need to change the keywords you use to expand your search. Subject Terms are found in Books+ and most databases; they usually refer to specific headings used by the Library of Congress or to subjects identified by the authors, publishers, or database administrators. Using Subject Terms will give you more precise results; several different subject terms may be related to your research topic.
