Home Information Skills Law Finding Legal Articles

Information Skills

Finding Law Articles

Searching for a cited journal article

It is much easier to find a cited article if you know which journal it refers to. A typical legal citation looks like this:

Uglow, S. "Criminal records under the Police Act 1997" [1998] Crim. L.R. 235

You will notice that the citation gives you the following information:

• The name of the author (Uglow, S.).
• The title of the article. This is usually given "in quotes" as in this example, but is sometimes given in italics.
• An abbreviated form of the title of the journal in which the case was published (CRIM. L.R.).
• The year in which the article was published (1998).
• The page number within the journal where the case was published (235). A page number is not always given.

The title of the journal is given as an abbreviation in the middle of the citation. The Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations is an excellent tool for finding the full journal title from an abbreviation. We recommend you add it to your bookmarks. Once you have the full journal title, you can start your search (see below).

Searching for a known journal title

The Online Library's Journal Finder allows you to search a catalogue of the journal titles where you can get the full text of articles. You will see a search box for the Journal Finder on the right side of every page in the Online Library. Simply enter the journal title and click on go. If your search finds any journal titles, for each title in the results list there will be a link back to the databases page where you can log into the correct database and find the journal. For most journals you will then need to search the database for the journal title - please read our notes on searching databases for journal titles.

More information about the Journal Finder »

Searching for articles on a particular topic

To find articles on a particular topic, probably the best place to start is the Legal Journals Index (LJI). To access the LJI proceed as follows:

1. Login to the Westlaw database with your Portal Password following the instructions is the Westlaw Login Guide .
2. After logging into Westlaw, choose "Journals" from the menu across the top of the Westlaw homepage.
3. Click on "Advanced Search" to view the full range of search options. You will notice that you can search for articles in a variety of ways. For instance, you can search by "free text " or by "subject / keyword".
4. Try searching by "free text" first; if this returns too many results, search by "subject, keyword" which should return fewer hits.
5. If the full text are the article is available in Westlaw if there is a red link to Full Text Article before the Legal Journals Index Abstract link. Simply click on Full Text Article to link through to the full text.

More information on using the Legal Journals Index »

In many cases the article will not be available in full text through Westlaw. Consequently, you will need to make a note of the references (or print them out), and then search the Journal Finder to see if the articles are available in full text through another database, such as LexisNexis, JSTOR, HeinOnline or Academic Search Complete.

If, you are still unable to find the full text of an article and need to confirm whether it is available electronically, or have any questions about finding articles on a particular topic, please contact the Online Library