Sally Waters
Stetson Law Library
waters@law.stetson.edu
SEMINAR PAPERS –
PICKING A TOPIC, DOING THE RESEARCH
FOR TOPIC IDEAS:
 Check specialized publications on your area of interest,
(e.g., Yale Journal of Law & Feminism.) The library is
filled with specialized publications, but many of those are
shelved in the particular subject areas (e.g.,
environmental law journals are shelved in KF 3775, which
has the environmental law books), so you might not see
them if you only look in the general law review area on
the 2d floor north. Also, remember that the most recent
periodicals are going to be in the Ives Room (across from
Larkin) until they are bound and put alongside the others
upstairs.

Do a keyword search on Legaltrac (available on the
library’s web page – look at ‘online databases’.) This is
MUCH more likely than Westlaw or Lexis to come up with
cites to articles that are helpful to you; some might be in
full-text, others in abstracts, and some just with citations
that you can then pull up in other sources.

Do a search in WESTLAW highlights for the latest case
decisions in your area of interest: go to the directory
listing, then “legal periodicals and current awareness”,
and from there to “highlights”. Clicking from there will
eventually get you to areas of topical highlights from
recent cases, or highlights from cases of a particular
state.

Use our ‘legal resources’ pages to find web sites for your
area of interest; you might also try a general Google
search. Organizations dealing with your area of interest
are especially good for giving you the latest news and
developments in different topics.
RESEARCHING THE TOPIC:
 Use our library catalog to find books on your topic! (My
recommendation – use the keyword search, which the
catalog defaults to, not title.) And remember the 3d floor
has items such as intl, non-law, med, etc.

Look for law review articles using Legaltrac or the other
indices online. (Remember, as far as using the full-text
article databases (e.g., “tp-all” on WESTLAW), these will
only give you the articles back to maybe the 1980s; they
also sometimes don’t cover the more specialized law
reviews, or those from other countries.)

Use the other databases listed on the library’s web page,
most of which you might not have tried. For example:
Hein Online will give you early law review articles
(as well as some current);
o Matthew Bender Authority will give you complete
treatises that can then be searched for specific
sections or topics;
o ProQuest will give you citations (and sometimes fulltext) of articles from several non-law sources;
o AND www.ebscohost.com is a TERRIFIC site for
finding articles on history, humanities, politics, the
arts, etc. Probably your best source for “non-law”
materials; many of the articles on this and
ABI/Inform are in full text, some in PDF format.
o

In general, if doing a search for helpful web sites, go with
the most authoritative: usually (and this doesn’t always
apply, but usually!) .gov sites are the most dependable,
followed by .edu, .org, then .com.

AND….don’t forget the news databases on both LEXIS and
WESTLAW, which will give you news articles (including
transcripts from radio & tv news, also magazine and
newpaper articles) from a great amount of sources.

Get a library card from your local public library! Not
because we don’t want you using ours – but because if
there is a recent book on your subject, especially if it’s
one written for laypeople and not specifically on law, you
can often find it there and check it out. Also, the public
libraries sometimes have great databases available to cad
holders.

LAST THING: you might find that you need some books or
articles which are not available here in the law library, or
online. Please ask for these on Interlibrary Loan, from
me; you can send in requests by e-mail or just drop off a
sheet of paper with as much information as you can give
me about the request. ILLs can take a few weeks to come
in, and we only have them for a limited time, so be sure to
use them as soon as you can and then return them to me.