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ACCT 248 McDermott

Getting familiar with legal research using the HeinOnline Database and Google Scholar

HeinOnline Database

Applying Search Filters

After you run your search, you can take advantage of the filters on the left side of the page. 

Keep special mind to the Date, Section Type, and Location.

screenshot of the HeinOnline Database with the section "refine your search" highlighted. Under this section the facets, "date," "section type," and "location" are highlighted.

Search Full Text

Often the easiest way to search is a full text search. In HeinOnline, full text search uses a software known as Fastcase. Searching within collection or by citation can be more efficient, but work better once the researcher has greater familiarity with legal research.

Tip

If you want to search within law review articles or legal code, use the magnifying glass button.

Screenshot from HeinOnline showing the menu options in articles and codes with the magnifying glass icon for searching highlighted.

Exact Search

Once you have identified search terms try putting them in quotes. This will greatly improve the specificity of your searches because it will exclude items that do not include the exact search terms you are looking for. What would the individual terms "United" "States" "of" "America" pull up instead of "United States of America"?

 

Generic words often introduce a lot of clutter into your search. Exact search terms can eliminate the extraneous results. This can greatly improve searching for specific people and places that may have a more generic word within the whole term (such as "Donald Trump" instead of Trump or "Salisbury University" instead of Salisbury).

Finding Case Citations

When viewing a case you can see how often it's been cited in an article or in other cases.

screenshot of a case within HeinOnline. In the upper right corner there are two links highlighted, the one on top reads "cited by 5353 Articles" and the link directly below it reads "cited by 1005 cases."

By clicking the link for article citations the subsequent results page you can sort the results by several ways (relevance, volume date - oldest first, volume date - newest first, document title, number of times cited by articles, number of times accessed in the past 12 months, number of times cited by cases, and the most cited author).

Screenshot of HeinOnline search results for "article citations" that shows the drop down menu for changing how to sort the results.

 

You can also resort the results on the Cases Cited Results Page (relevance, decision date - oldest first, decision date - newest first, number of times cited by articles, number of times cited by cases, and document title). Searching by date can be helpful if you're looking for newer cases that cite the case you're researching.

Screenshot of HeinOnline "cases cited" results page that shows the drop down menu for changing how to sort the results.