Guides on searching and using legal information

Using legal information

Guide for new law students – finding case law online and in print in the library

Guide for new law students – understanding legal abbreviations and citations

Scottish Council of Law Reporting video series on law reporting - history of law reporting; legal precedent and the criteria for the reporting of cases; authority and arrangement of the Session Cases; using the law reports; accessing the reports.

Incorporated Council of Law Reporting knowledge portal including guides on case law and legislation.

Judiciary of Scotland education material including criminal and civil case procedure.

Searching guides

Westlaw training guides including detailed guides on searching for cases, legislation, and secondary sources (books, journals, commentary)

Westlaw self-paced training and certification.  Get a certificate to add to your CV and useful skills to get the most out of the database. You can do the same for Lexis+.

Effective searching: Boolean, search operators and complementary search techniques –  a guide on search techniques for finding secondary sources (books, journals) covering how searching works; effective techniques and an introduction to controlled vocabulary, database thesauri and complementary search techniques.

Google searching and Google Scholar settings a guide on how Google searching works; using search features for effective searching and refining search results; Google Scholar settings for full-text access and exporting citations.

Finding information for your dissertation a guide on how to plan a search strategy; types of information source and the best tools to use to find them.; tips for searching and managing your references.

Critical appraisal tools for evaluating information sources