Finding journal articles in Westlaw
(a) Abstracted articles
Searching through the WestlawUK abstracted articles is a good way to find details of highly relevant
articles, many of which are available in the database in full. If the text is not included in WestlawUK, take
the details of the article and search Encore for the journal title, e.g. Modern Law Review. (See “Go
Further” for guidance.)
N.B. This part of Westlaw only contains journals published in the UK – try the Index to Legal Periodicals
for details of articles published in a wider range of countries.
Action: Log on to Westlaw UK from the Library list of databases.
Action: Select Journals (at the top of the screen)
Select “Abstracted articles”, below “Browse”.
This option includes the Westlaw Legal Journals Index, which enables you to search for very specific
results – an index makes use of assigned keywords which point to the topics you require.
Action: Enter pepper hart “statutory interpretation” in the search box, and Search.
A lot has been written about the case of Pepper v Hart, so you might like to narrow down the search further.
Action: enter Hansard in the box to “Search within results” and search again – this greatly reduces the
number of articles to work through, so it will save you time.
Scroll through the results, which are displayed in order of relevance.
Action: open the abstract of the article by Philip Sales, “Pepper v Hart: a footnote to Professor
Vogenauer's reply to Lord Steyn” which was published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies.
Search Encore for the journal title; check which option or options
include the year 2006 when this article was published and select
any link accordingly. (Lexis and Oxford Journals online can both
provide the article in this example.)
(b) Full text searching
As well as using this index within Westlaw, you can search for a highly specific term in the full text of
articles, which may help if very little has been written. The articles retrieved may not be so relevant as the
results of a search in the Abstracted Articles, but even one good paragraph may be useful for research.
Action: Click Journals, to return to the top of the page and search in the full text of the journals.
Action: Enter the terms assault /p youth /p knife to find articles which mention all 3 words in the same para.
Action: compare this with the results if you use the Westlaw legal journals index –
Select “Edit search” at the top left, and select “Abstracted articles”, below “Browse”.
Your search terms should still remain in the box – alter /p to & and search again. This time you will find
even fewer articles!
Adjusting your full text search
You can choose how to use this database – either narrow down a search if there are too many irrelevant
articles to work through, OR widen it out if very little is retrieved.
e.g. in a full text search, try: assault /p (youth or young or juvenile) /p (knife or gun)
Other tactics might be to remove the mention of a specific weapon, OR to use & instead of /p, OR to use
another database – especially Lexis.
Action: Click the link to the Westlaw logo (top left) to return to the home page, or click Log Out if you want
to end your session.