Journal Articles for Law

button Definitions
button Why Use Journal Articles?
button Where to find articles relevant to your topic
button How to get articles that aren’t available electronically
button Current awareness


Definitions

Legal Journals Glossary lookup can be 'peer reviewed' Glossary lookup such as “Modern Law Review”, or aimed at a professional audience e.g. “New Law Journal”. They can be general in their coverage or aimed at an audience with specialist interests such as medical or family law etc.

Why use journal articles?

Journal articles provide:

  • useful information on legal issues, cases and legislation.
  • discussions on proposed reforms to the law.
  • a wider perspective on a subject than you would get from using just textbooks
  • current information not yet in the textbooks.
  • Some case reports.


Referring to journal articles appropriately in your work provides evidence both of broad reading and your research work. Make sure that you reference them correctly.


Where to find articles relevant to your topic
Various resources are available to help you find journal articles relevant to your topic. Some of the most important are listed below.
The top 5 sources are:

1. Westlaw
A major section within the Westlaw database is “ Journals" which provides full text articles from legal periodicals published by Sweet & Maxwell. A Browse facility allows you to select a specific journal title and few the contents, issue by issue, or you can search for articles by subject, author etc.

Legal Journals Index. a part of this database, covers both English and European legal journals from 1986 onwards. It includes both journal articles and case commentaries. Articles from Sweet and Maxwell publications, Oxford UP and tottle are available in fulltext Glossary lookup.

You can also check if any journal (UK or world-wide) is available on Westlaw by clicking on Westlaw International and using the Directory and typing all or part of the title into the “Search these databases” box, or search by topic, author or journal title on the main search screen.

2. LexisLibrary
This database contains an increasing number of full text law journals. You can search Journals” (a drop down arrow next to the search box will list all of the titles that are included) or use “more sources to find out if any UK journal is available.

3. Lawtel UK
This database includes access to legal journal abstracts.Glossary lookup

4. Some legal journals are available electronically in full text via our Digital Library. You can check for individual titles via “Find e-journal”.

5. British Library Direct can be used to search for journal articles. You can limit your search to those available online in full text.

Other useful sources include:

  • Findlaw Law Journals Search provides a subject search service for full text articles that are available free on the Internet.
  • Law Journals on the World-Wide Web provides links to journals with substantive or full text content.
  • ASSIA (Appled Social Sciences Index and Abstracts) –is a social science based database which indexes certain legal journals and social science based journals that discuss the legal aspects of issues.
  • ZETOC provides an electronic table of contents for journals held at the British Library including many legal journals.
  • Newspapers
    The Times, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Independent, Guardian and associated Sunday papers are available on the UK Newspapers online, database.

All of the above are available via the Digital Library



How to get articles that aren’t available online

If an article isn’t available online the next step is to check the Library holdings:
check the Library catalogue by journal title. This will tell you which of our Libraries stocks that journal and how far back it is kept.

If the journal is held at another site, fill in an Inter Library Loan form and we will order from that site. You will be charged photocopying costs.

If the journal you require is not in stock you can order articles through our Interlibrary Loan service

Current awareness

It can be useful to identify the key journals on your subject and scan the current contents. This will help you to keep abreast of changes in the law and current debates. The most recent issues of journals are normally on display in the Library.

It is often possible to both view the contents pages of recent issues and sometimes access selected articles from the publisher’s home pages.
Electronic Law Journals / provides access to a list of UK law journals for this purpose.
The University of Texas School of Law also provides a contents page service that includes journals published outside the US.

Further help