Skip navigation to main content

You are here: UNE Home / Library / Resources / Research guides / Law / LS 377

LS 377 Information Technology Law

How to find journal articles for your assignment

Introduction

For information on how to use all of UNE's online legal tools, look at Online Legal Research at UNE.

For hints and tutorials on how to write in a legal style, try Writing Skills for Law from the UNE Academic Skills Office.

Note also that you are expected to use the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (2nd ed) for your referencing style.

Finding references

If you want to find references about legal issues and cases, you need to use a journal index. These tell you the titles of articles, author names, and (most importantly) the source: journal title, year, volume number, issue number and pages.

Indexes usually provide either an abstract (a short summary of the topics covered) or subject descriptors so that you can judge if an article is going to be useful to you. Increasingly indexes are also providing the article itself, online in full-text.

This guide will show you how to find references using the Informit indexes, CaseBase and what to do if an article is not available online.

AGIS Plus Text and APA Full Text (Informit)

AGIS Plus Text (AGIS-PT) provides information about legal articles including abstracts, subject descriptors, case names and jurisdictions. Over 130 of the journals indexed are also available in full-text, mainly from 1999.

Subject coverage includes administrative law, banking, companies and securities, constitutional law, copyright law, criminal law, environmental law, family law, human rights, international law, legal aid, and trade practices.

Australian Public Affairs Full Text (APA-FT) does not provide abstracts, but there are useful subject descriptors. There are also links to more than 450 journals in full-text from 1995, plus links to free web documents.

Subject coverage includes business, health, current affairs, economics, humanities, law, literature, politics and the social sciences.

How to find articles

Finding articles in AGIS-PT and APA-FT:

  • Go the resource page and click on Informit from the lift of Most Popular Databases.
  • Enter your UNE username and password when prompted.
  • Mark the boxes next to AGIS Plus Text and Australian Public Affairs Full Text.
  • Click on the Start Searching button.
  • In the first search box type boundar* (* is for truncation and will find boundary or boundaries).
  • Use the pull-down arrow to select OR instead of AND.
  • In the second search box type border*
  • Select OR again and type place* in the third search box.
  • Click on Search.

We can also combine our searches.

  • Clear the first and second search boxes.
  • Enter internet in the first box and click on Search.
  • Clear the first search box again.
  • Enter cyber space in the first box.
  • Change the pull-down menu from AND to OR.
  • Enter cyberspace in the second box.
  • Click on the View search history tab.
  • Tick the boxes next to the searches you want to combine and then click Combine using AND to the right.
  • Try combining internet with boundar* OR border* OR place* or try cyber space OR cyberspace with boundar* OR border* OR place*

Keywords for different questions

  • For Question 2 try separate searches for the keywords identit*, fraud* and card*. Then you can combine identity with fraud and identity with card.
  • For Question 3 search for digital OR online OR internet. Then do separate searches for copyright and liab*. View your Search History and then combine the searches using AND.
  • For Question 4 try spy* OR spam*. Then do a separate search for government* and combine the two searches with AND. (Note that, for this topic, the Australian Institute of Criminology at http://www.aic.gov.au/topics/cybercrime/fraud.html also provides many useful documents).

Viewing your results

The results of your search are displayed as a series of records. Clicking on the article title will take you to the record.

Options

To change the display of your results, click on the Options tab (top right of the Informit screen). It's usually a good idea to use the pull-down menu on the Options window to sort results by Publication year instead of Default natural order.

You can also choose the number of records displayed on each page and the default record display. Choosing to see subject descriptors or abstracts will provide you with a better idea of the relevance and contents of each article.

To save your changes, click the Update options button and then Back to search.

Full-text options

The available full-text options for each article are visible under the article title in the list of search results. The options are:

  • Full text PDF — the article in PDF format on the web
  • Full text PDF (external) — the article in PDF format on the Web
  • Full Text HTML (external) — the article in HTML on the Web
  • Full Text (archive) — the article in an archived electronic journal.

Remember: not all articles are available in full text.

Marked records

You can also scan through your results and mark any records of interest by putting ticks in the boxes next to their titles. To see your complete list click on the tab called View Marked Records. You can then email, print or save the list.

When you are finished

Click on the Logout button at the top right of the screen to finish using Informit.

CaseBase

CaseBase covers more than sixty Australian and overseas Law Reports titles. It also cites unreported decisions of the High Court, the Federal Court and all Australian Supreme Courts. As a bonus, CaseBase also indexes around 100 legal journals so you can find references to articles about some of the cases.

You can access CaseBase through the LexisNexis AU (Butterworths) platform in the legal e-resources.

UNE's subscription to CaseBase does not contain full-text case reports (except for NSW Law Reports) or journal articles. Its job is to tell you where specific case decisions or journal articles are published.

If you want to then find a particular reference or citation, use the catalogue to search for the law report or journal you require. See below for help to do this.

To experiment with CaseBase, let's search for information on Question 3:

  • Go to the Law Indexes (If you haven't already done so, it might be an idea to add to your Favorites).
  • Select CaseBase journal article index from the list.
  • You should now see a CaseBase search template.
  • Enter the following in the Search terms box: liab! and (digital or online or internet)
    ! is the LexisNexis symbol for truncation and will find liable, liability and liabilities. Placing the other keywords in parentheses means that references will be found that mention digital OR online OR internet in the same record as liabl!
  • Enter copyright in the Catchwords/Summary box. This means that CaseBase will search for copyright in the major terms or descriptors for each reference.
  • Click on the red Search button.

For Question 1, enter (cyber space OR cyberspace OR internet) in the Catchwords/Summary box and (border! OR bound! OR place) in the Search Terms box.

For Question 2, enter fraud! in the Catchwords/Summary box and (identit! or card!) in the Search Terms box.

For Question 4, enter spam! or spy! in the Catchwords/Summary box.

Another technique is to look for articles about a particular case:

In the Case/Article Name box, type, gutnick, to find references citing that case.

Marked records

You can mark records of interest and print, email or save them using the icons at the top right of your results.

Sign out

When you have finished using LexisNexis AU (Butterworths) click on Sign Out at the top right of the screen.

Remember that CaseBase does not provide the articles. To find them, use the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations to work out the real titles of the journals and then follow the hints in the next section.

Can't find an article online?

If you don't find the article you want in an Informit database or CaseBase, search the UNE Library Catalogue. The Library catalogue tells you which law reports and journals are held at UNE, either in paper or online. Here are two examples:

  • Look in our catalogue and try a Title or Journal Title search for law institute journal
  • You should see an entry for Law institute journal: The official organ of the Law Institute of Victoria
  • This tells you that UNE only holds this in print at the call number P340/L415 from Vol. 54 (1980) onwards.
  • If you are an external student, you can ask for a photocopy of an article.

The catalogue will also tell you if UNE holds a journal online.

  • Try a search for MIS Australia or Computer Law Review and Technology Journal.
  • If a journal is available online, you will usually see an entry in the catalogue that says [electronic resource] after the title.
  • Click on the title and the record tells you that the first journal is available online in full-text in Factiva and the second in LexisNexis Legal.
  • Click on the URL (web address) provided and you will be taken to Factiva or LexisNexis Legal.
  • Then you will have to search for the article you want.

Tip: While Law tends to use abbreviations for the titles of law reports and journals the catalogue does not always list these. You will probably need to use the full titles.

Try the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations at http://www.legalabbrevs.cardiff.ac.uk/ if you want to know the proper titles.

Referencing

When you use material written by other people for your assignments, it is important to acknowledge their work and use the correct style. Click here for more information about referencing and plagiarism.

The UNE School of Law requires the use of the Australian legal referencing system found in the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (2nd ed).

Library staff are happy to help you. Phone 02 6773 2322 during Law Library opening hours or Ask a Librarian online.