National Law University, Odisha

Course: Legal Method

Conducting Research
on the Net
Abhik Majumdar

Two Aspects to Internet Research

How to search
Where to search

Two Aspects to Internet Research

How to search
Where to search
Primary Material
Secondary Material

How to Search What's the Big Deal?

We have all used Google and other search engines

How to Search What's the Big Deal?

We have all used Google and other search engines
And have waded through hundreds, sometimes
thousands of hits, most of them irrelevant

How to Search What's the Big Deal?

We have all used Google and other search engines
And have waded through hundreds, sometimes
thousands of hits, most of them irrelevant
The techniques we shall discuss now serve to
Limit the number of hits
Exclude irrelevant pages

How to Search What's the Big Deal?

We have all used Google and other search engines
And have waded through hundreds, some times thousands
of hits, most of them irrelevant
The techniques we shall discuss now serve to
Limit the number of hits
Exclude irrelevant pages
These techniques will not do all your work for you you
might still need to manually examine hits and discard the
unimportant ones
However, they will make your search more efficient, i.e.
lessen the amount of manual work you need to do

How to Search What's the Big Deal?

We have all used Google and other search engines
And have waded through hundreds, some times thousands
of hits, most of them irrelevant
The techniques we shall discuss now serve to
Limit the number of hits
Exclude irrelevant pages
These techniques will not do all your work for you you
might still need to manually examine hits and discard the
unimportant ones
However, they will make your search more efficient, i.e.
lessen the amount of manual work you need to do
That is the big deal about how to search

How to Search
In today's world, almost all searches lead to
(and out of) Google
Most techniques discussed here related
specifically to Google
However, the basic concepts we discuss can be
applied mutatis mudandis to other search
engines also, including specialist databases
like Indlaw and Thinklegal

How to Search Key Aspects

Boolean Operators
Wildcards
Special Operators
Filetype: Restricts search to only specified
filetype
Site: Restricts search within specified site
Others

Boolean Operators
Function of boolean operators is to connect, and
thereby include or exclude, search terms
In this way, searches can be restricted or expanded to
yield the results that we want
Written in capitals within search string (Google,
particularly, is otherwise case-insensitive)
OR operator
AND operator
Quotation marks
Similar
NOT operator

OR Operator
Yields hits where either of the terms specified are present
Also represented by the | (or pipe) symbol
If you enter the search string [speluncean OR explorers] or
[speluncean | explorers], you will get hits to pages that
contain
either speluncean
or explorer
or both (will be discussed later)
Order in which terms are found is not relevant

OR Operator

(assume these are separate webpages):

AND Operator
Yields hits where both the terms specified are present
Also represented by the + symbol
If you enter the search string [speluncean AND explorers]
or [speluncean + explorers], you will get hits to pages
that contain
both speluncean and explorer
Not necessarily together (i.e. found separately within
a single page)
Not necessarily in the order specified

AND Operator

Quotation Marks
When a search string is enclosed in quotation marks, it
yields only pages that contain:
the text and other characters mentioned
in the order specified
i.e. precisely is contained within the quotation marks
Enter the search string [speluncean explorers], you will
get hits to pages that contain the phrase speluncean
explorers

 Each operator has its own uses

For example, sometimes AND preferred to quotes
Suppose you want to search for product liability
There may exist many pages which do not contain the
precise phrase product liability, but are still relevant
manufacturers' liability for products
liability for warranty on products
defective workmanship on products . . . tortious liability

To ensure pages containing these phrases are also included

in the search results, one uses the search string [product
AND liability]

Similar
Denoted by the ~ (tilde) sign
Searches for terms similar to the specified
term
If you search for [tortious ~liability], you will get
Tortious liability
Tortious damages
Tortious compensation

NOT operator
Excludes the specified term
Denoted by the sign
If you want to search for reasonable damages,
reasonable precautions, reasonable
forseeability, reasonable precautions, but NOT
reasonable care, you use the search string
[reasonable -care]
If a page contains only reasonable, it shall
show up on the search results, but if it contains
both reasonable and care, it shall be
excluded

Wildcards
Wildcards used:
If you do not know the exact spelling of the term you
want to search for
Or if the term can be spelt in different ways
Or if you want to search for variants of a single term

Two types of wildcards

[?] - specific number of letters
[*] - number of letters not important

 Suppose you want to search for the term specialise

This is spelt in at least two ways - Specialise and
specialize
To search for both, you can use the string [speciali?e]

String [special???] (NB: three question marks)

Specialise
Specialize
Specialist
but not Specially (only two extra letters after
'special')

 On the other hand, if you use a string like [special*], you

will get all terms that begin with 'special' and continue
with as many letters as possible:

Specialise
Specialize
Specialisation
Specialistically
Specialisationally

Special Operators
These operators restrict or control searches
according to specific directions, rather than
in relation to the search string.
That is, they make the search engine look for
the specified terms within certain defined
parameters

'Filetype' operator
Restricts searches to specified filetypes only
Syntax: {'filetype:'}{file extension}
[filetype:pdf speluncean explorers] will yield
only those PDF documents that contain the
phrase speluncean explorers
[filetype:doc product AND liability] will yield MS
Word documents that contain the words
'product' and 'liability' (not necessarily
together)

'Site' operator
Searches only within the specified website
[site:hindu.com product liability] looks for
product liability within all pages contained in
hindu.com
Is a good idea to use top-level domains like
'hindu.com' rather than 'www.hindu.com'
If you use 'www.hindu.com', the engine will not
look at pages contained in, say,
http://flonnet.hindu.com (Frontline magazine)

Where to Search
Primary Material

Where to Search
Primary Material
Case Reports
Statutes
Law Commission Reports
Others (Constitutional Assembly Debates,
legislative debates, policy statements etc.)

Case Reports
International:
http://www.worldlii.org/

English law:
http://www.bailii.org/

American law:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/
US Supreme Ct:
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html

Case Reports
Indian Law
JUDIS: http://www.judis.nic.in/
http://www.commonlii.org
Liiofindia
Indiankanoon
Paid Databases
Manupatra
Westlaw

Secondary Material
Google Scholar (books and articles)
Google Books (books)
SSRN (articles)
Specialised Databases
JSTOR (law and social sciences)
HeinOnline (only law journal articles)

Secondary Material
Searching JSTOR and Hein through Google
Use Google site search function
[site:jstor.com product liability]
But location of database within the site is a key issue

Secondary Material
Searching JSTOR and Hein through Google
Use Google site search function
[site:jstor.com product liability]
But location of database within the site is a key issue
[site:jstor.com product liability]
[site:heinonline.com product liability]
[site:heinonline.org product liability]

Secondary Material
Searching JSTOR and Hein through Google
Use Google site search function
[site:jstor.com product liability]
But location of database within the site is a key issue
[site:jstor.com product liability]
[site:jstor.org product liability]
[site:heinonline.com product liability]
[site:heinonline.org product liability]
[site:heinonlinebackup.com product liability]