LibGuides: Law: Introduction

For fun...

Expanding Wigmore’s List of 100 Legal Novels (Library of Congress)

Fall 2024 Update: New/Newish Helpful WSU Libraries Resources and Services

JSTOR - we have continuing access to ALL of JSTOR's journal content (including the Security Studies and Sustainability thematic collections)! This was originally set to end in June 2023, but has been extended as a permanent subscription.

HeinOnline / Hein Online
Database of legal and government resources, including laws, regulations, some trials and court reports, treaties, monographs, and a variety of other materials covering United States and foreign law. Coverage includes private and public international law, intellectual property and legal history. Includes full text image-based searchable database of legal periodicals. Database coverage for each periodical is from the beginning issue to the most current allowed under contract. New and updated material added frequently.
Statista
Statista provides access to statistics and studies gathered by market researchers, trade organizations, scientific publications, and government sources on over 600 industries.
PolicyMap
Now permanent!!! as of January 2022
An online (no software installation needed) U.S. national data and mapping tool and analytics platform with multidisciplinary applications for college students and faculty. Undergraduate and graduate schools use us in their curriculum and research related to social sciences, urban studies, real estate and housing analysis, community and economic development, public administration, public health, policy and political science, education, business, economics, statistics, and geography, among others. Users can leverage thousands of U.S. data indicators in PolicyMap to perform demographic and socioeconomic analysis, from a neighborhood census block group in many cases, up to a national level, as well as create custom regions, for their research and studies.
Look for Blog Posts, Customer Stories, and sample Maps, Tables, and Reports.
SAGE Research Methods
Designed to guide users to the content they need to learn a little or a lot about their method, SAGE Research Methods includes more than 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading academics from across the social sciences, including the largest collection of qualitative methods books available online from any scholarly publisher. The Methods Map can help those less familiar with research methods to find the best technique to use in their research.
“Not all vendors are able to use OpenAthens Federated Access to authenticate users. If you need to access resources from this vendor, please do not use the OpenAthens institutional login on their website. Instead, start from the WSU Libraries Search It tool or Datbases AZ list. Once we move completely to OpenAthens, sign in will be possible directly through the vendor website."

Off-Campus Access: Open Athens and LibKey Nomad
Open Athens is the invisible way you can access library resources after logging in with your WSU NetID. The WSU Libraries' LibKey Nomad extension can be used to provide instant access to PDFs available through the WSU Libraries - it will follow you around (and NOT collect any data!) and will show a green logo in the lower left corner of your screen if you are on the landing page of an article WSU has access to. Click it and it will take you to Search It for access.
Citation Linker
Use this link when you have a citation and want to get to the book or article. It will link to the item you want. If it is not available at the WSU Libraries, it will generate an automatic Interlibrary Loan form so you can easily request it.
Note: you can also find this at the top of Search It - but you'll have to click on the ... menu.
The Dimensions Lab
Big Monitors. Cool software. Large (but not really large) scanner. 3D Photogrammetry. Macs. 3-D printer. And more. #DigitalMaking
The Libraries’ Dimensions Lab is equipped to provide computing resources and tools for computer-based projects in the fields of media, art, music, engineering, computer science, and physics. The lab is located on the first floor of the Holland Library on the WSU Pullman campus, right off the main elevators between Holland and Terrell.
Added in fall 2021: a small recording studio, the Audio Lab.
Browzine
"An interface provided by the company Third Iron, BrowZine allows patrons to browse and stay current with the electronic journals in their academic fields. BrowZine provides multiple entry points to connect with scholarly materials, including: via the BrowZine web and mobile applications and from within Search It."
WSU Academic Integrity/Plagiarism Information Website
WSU Libraries Citation Style Quick Guides (includes APA 7th)
"These quick reference guides are designed to provide easy access to common formatting and stylistic requirements for each citation style."
APA Style (7th Ed.) Handouts and Guides (free)
"The following are instructional aids for the seventh edition Publication Manual, Concise Guide to APA Style, and Mastering APA Style Student Workbook. They can be used in homes, classrooms, libraries, or anywhere you are learning or teaching APA Style."
APA: The Basics of Seventh Edition APA Style (free)
Free tutorial
Just in case, APA Sixth Edition Resources
APA: Style and Grammar Guidelines (7th edition; free)
Just in case, APA Sixth Edition Resources

Introduction: What Law Is and How to Read a Legal Citation

What Law Is

"Law, in its generic sense, is a body of rules or action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority, and having binding legal force." Black's Law Dictionary.

To do any legal research a knowledge of the four forms of law: Constitutional law, Statute law, Administrative law, and Case law, is essential. "Legal research" consists of tracing the history of constitutions, statutes, court cases, and administrative regulations - looking for connections between them, and making interpretations and judgments of them.

Constitutional Law: Constitutions provide the framework for the functioning of governments. They also create the “legislative body” that governs a country or state. The United States Constitution created the United States Congress, and the Washington Constitution created the Washington State Legislature.
Statute Law: Statute laws, or acts, are passed by the legislative body: Congress or the State Legislature and signed by the executive: the President or the Governor.
Administrative Law: The rules, regulations, licenses and decisions made by administrative agencies that operate under the executive.
Case Law: When two parties disagree about what a law means, they ask a court to make a decision as to what is the proper interpretation of the law.

How to Read a Legal Citation

Any law, court case, rule or regulation has a legal citation. Legal citations has a specific format and it is different from the citation format used in other academic disciplines. To do legal research you need to be able to understand a legal citation. This is how to read a legal citation:

Law Name: Civil Rights Act of 1964
Legal Citation: 78 Stat 241

78 is the volume number; Stat is the abbreviation for United States Statutes at Large, the publication; and 241 is the page number.

This format - volume, abbreviation for the publication, and page number - remains basically the same for all legal materials and it is used to cite law review articles as well as other legal sources.

Legal Research Databases

Nexis Uni is the primary legal research database that is available to WSU faculty, students, and staff. It provides full text access to a wide range of United States, state, and foreign legal materials including codes, court opinions, law reviews and legal periodicals, as well as thousands of news sources and company information. An online guide provides a tutorial and other information on searching Nexis Uni.

A Sampling of WSU Legal/Law Journals via the Browzine tool

An interface provided by the company Third Iron, BrowZine allows patrons to browse and stay current with the electronic journals in their academic fields. BrowZine provides multiple entry points to connect with scholarly materials, including: via the BrowZine web and mobile applications and from within Search It. Learn more at https://libraries.wsu.edu/browzine/.

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