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Law: Articles

A start guide to legal research in the C J Koh Law Library

Introduction

Law journals and reviews are collections of articles on specific legal topics. They are published periodically and provide information on the latest developments in the law as well as commentaries on and criticisms of the law.

Examples include the Harvard Law Review, Journal of Equity, Modern Law Review and Singapore Journal of Legal Studies.

a. What is an article citation?

Citations are references to where you can locate articles in law journals and reviews.

Examples:
i. Dora Neo, “The Sale of Goods (Amendment) Act 1996: Satisfactory Quality, an Undivided Share in a Bulk and other Amendments” (1997) 9 SAcLJ 362.
ii. David Feldman, “The Nature of Legal Scholarship” (198952 Mod.L.Rev. 498

Citations contain:

  • author of the article
  • title of the article
  • year the article was published
  • volume number of the journal
  • journal abbreviation 
  • first page of the article

b. How do I find a journal?

To determine the availability and location of journals in the NUS Libraries, run a Title Search for the journal in the library catalogue, LINC. For example, modern law review:

Alternatively, search for full text articles in one of the law databases listed in the right column.

Guides & Tutorials

Guides on how to find journal articles:

Legal Abbreviations

Identify legal abbreviations using these online and print sources:

Journal Indexes & Bibliographies

A good way to start searching for articles is to use an index to legal periodicals or a bibliography. The following databases contain citations to a wide range of journal articles. Search for articles by author, subject or keyword:

These databases will link you to the full text of articles if they are available through NUS Libraries databases.

Alternatively, once you have retrieved the article citation, you may search for the journal by Title through the library catalogue, LINC.

Full Text Databases

For a full listing of law journal databases, see Guide to Electronic Resources Collection.

Here is a selection of the more commonly used databases:

Newspapers

Newspaper articles are important as they contain commentaries on various legal issues. The following databases provide access to a wide variety of newspapers and other news sources:

*indicates open access database

Google Scholar

Google Scholar Search

For direct access to full texts of publications within NUS Libraries' subscriptions, install Find It!@NUS Libraries, Proxy Bookmarklet or LibKey Nomad.

Installation instructions:
https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/findfulltext