THE PARALEGAL’S GUIDE TO GOING BEYOND BASIC SEARCH:

Tapping into Google’s Full Potential for Legal Research

Going Beyond Basic Search: Tapping into Google’s Full Potential for Legal Research

Essential search tips and productivity tools for using Google’s basic search effectively

When and how to use Google’s advanced search Finding legal materials using Google Scholar

Thursday, June 21Presented by Elizabeth Geesey Holmes

Essential search tips and productivity tools for using Google’s basic search effectively

Part 1

Check Your Settings!

How to Change Your Settings

Do a Search FIRST!Click on gear to bring up search settings

Search Settings: Search Results

Search Settings: Search Results

Google Search automatically returns results in the language you choose for Google product text. You can also request results in other languages. If you don’t select any other language you will only get results if the page is in English

Search Settings: Languages

Search Settings: Location

My location is set to Baltimore, MD so my results are in that area

Check & change location quickly by clicking here

Use Boolean Searching (and/or other search

strategies)

Boolean Logic A system developed by mathematician

George Boole during the 19th century that uses a series of connectors to define relationships between objects

Boolean Connectors: AND Google Default All of the keywords are present

Search: probate law Results: Both the term probate and the

term law

Boolean Connectors: OR One keyword or the other, or both

keywords are present Search: probate OR trust law Results: will all have the term law

combined with either the word trust or probate

NOTE: You must capitalize OR otherwise Google will treat it as a stop word and ignore it

Boolean Connectors: NOT (-)

No results with this keyword are returned Search: Anne Tyler –author -novel Returns results with the keywords Anne

and Tyler, but without the keyword author, and without the word novel

Use this strategy to find results for your former classmate Anne Tyler, but not for the novelist Anne Tyler

Word Stemming (and un-stemming)

Searching for constitutional will also find the words: constitution and constitutions

Proximity Searching:Asterisk (*)/ Wildcard

Search: Elizabeth * Holmes Results: Include:

Elizabeth Geesey Holmes Elizabeth G Holmes, BUT also Elizabeth Spencer, Amy Holmes

Proximity Searching:Asterisk (*)/ Wildcard

Phrase Searching: “ “

Use for searching exact phrases or words Use to stop Google from stemming Enter your phrase or word in quotation

marks Search: Ed Braks Results: Ed, Edward, Breaks – not Braks Search: Ed “Braks” Results: Ed, Edward and Braks – NO Breaks

Navigate your search results

What if I just want News Articles?

Sidebar for narrowing your search

Results limited to NEWS

Links to Advanced Search & Search Help

Ads related to this search

Other searches related to this search

When to Use Basic Search, and Some Other Tips &

Tricks

Use Basic Search As… Your starting point

Then narrow results, or use Boolean search operators to get more relevant hits

Use Basic Search As… A tool to look up simple facts

Population Ecuador President Poland Capitol of Massachusetts

Use Basic Search As… A calculator

7 * 2 + 4

Use Basic Search As… A dictionary

define res ipsa loquitur

Use Basic Search As… A weather forecaster

weather 02806

A few other tips and tricks Keep it simple Think how the page you are looking for

will be written Choose descriptive words

When and how to use Google’s advanced search

Part 2

I’m Curious Have you used

the Advanced Search page? A. Yes B. No

If you have not used it, why not? A. I didn’t know

about it B. I am not an

advanced searcher

C. I don’t need to use it.

How to get to Advanced Search2. Click on GEAR Icon

3. Choose Advanced Search

1. Do a Basic Search

Limiting Results to Specific File Formats

Enter your search words in the Boolean search boxes at the top of the page

Scroll down to narrow your results by File Type

Choose the file type from the drop down box Example: Limit search results to .ppt to find

presentations posted to the web by opposing experts.

Click on the arrow to bring up the drop down menu box

Limiting Results to a Specific Web Site

Search one site (like wikipedia.org) or limit your results to a domain like .edu, .org or .gov

The command to do this in basic search is site:

Enter your search terms

Limit to a domain or domain type

All Results are from domains ending in .edu

A few more Hidden Features Limiting results to where your search

terms appear in the website In the title of the page In the text of the page In the URL of the page In links to the page

Limiting results by date updated

Two ways to limit by date updated

Basic Search SidebarAdvanced Search

Page

Why Use Advanced Search Indispensable in refining your searches

to bring the relevant results to the first pages Use to find results:

From a specific date range In a different language From a particular website In a specific file format

Fill in the box format means you don’t have to remember specific search commands

Finding legal materials using Google Scholar

Part 3

What is Google Scholar? Specialized search that retrieves results

from a separate database Includes: Articles, Theses, Books,

Abstracts, and Court Opinions From academic publishers, professional

societies, online repositories, universities and other scholarly web sites

How to get to Google Scholar Go to: (http://scholar.google.com/)

OR In Basic Google type in the search:

scholar Your first result will be for Google Scholar

Old “Look” for Google Scholar main page

Click here to try “modern look”

Link to Advanced Search is still here

New “modern look” Google Scholar Main Page

Revert to “old venerable” look

Settings are still here, but link to Advanced Search is gone

Important Preference Settings

Default to search legal opinions and journals

Set number of results per page

Open results in a new window

Don’t forget to Save

What legal research material can I find here?

Federal and State case law Legal journal articles

Where does it come from? Google’s own database Google also links to alternate

sources for some cases, such as Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, Justia and Public.Resource.org

Google Scholar Case CoverageU.S. State appellate and supreme Court case opinions

1950-present

U.S. Federal district, appellate, tax and bankruptcy court case opinions

1923-present

U.S. Supreme Court case opinions

1791-present

Searching Google Scholar by Topic

Do not forget to check the radio button to search legal documents

Click on the arrow to get to the advanced search boxes

Advanced search boxes are the same as those in regular Google. Notice there are no boxes for limiting your results, just for searching

Click X to close Advanced search boxes

Search results not limited. Legal documents is highlighted. To limit by jurisdiction chose the select courts button to chose the courts you want to search. Rhode Island courts is an option because it is the last court I limited to in a previous search.

Sidebar with options for narrowing your search results

First result is one of the key cases for this topic

Navigating Google Scholar Search Results

Navigate between views. Current view is READ

Name & citation of case

Navigate between views. Current view is HOW CITED

12

3

Search by Citation Enter the bluebook form of the citation

into the Find articles with the exact phrase box on the Advanced Search page

Search for your words appearing anywhere in the article

Searching by Party Name Enter the party names into the Find

articles with the exact phrase box. Only use the letter v and not the whole

word versus or the abbreviation vs. Limit where your words occur to “in

the title of the article” On the results page limit by jurisdiction

if relevant

Searching by Judge Enter the judge’s last name into the

search box labeled Return articles written by.

On the results page limit by jurisdiction.

Google Scholar for Legal Research: PROS

Hyperlinked case citations Fast and accurate search results Relevancy as good or better than commercial

legal research services “How Cited” tab provides links to cases and

scholarly documents that have cited your case

Set up Alerts Send direct links to cases It’s FREE

Google Scholar for Legal Research: CONS

Search results based on Google’s system for ranking search results rather than actual importance of case

Cannot easily tell if case is still good law. No index tool Statutes and Rules are not hyperlinked Lacks some older cases

“Have fun and keep googling.”~Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a note on the new google.com (1998)

Contact Information

Elizabeth Geesey HolmesLibrarianPartridge Snow & Hahn LLPegh@psh.comEGHresearch@gmail.comhttp://www.elizabethgeeseyholmes.com/

Resources Official Google Blog (

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/) Google Help Center (

http://support.google.com/?hl=en) Nancy Backman’s Google Guide (

http://www.googleguide.com/) Google for Lawyer’s by Carole Levitt and

Mark Rosch Google Hacks by Tara Calishain and Rael

Dornfest

More Resources Google Scholar Help (

http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/help.html) Advanced Scholar Search Tips (

http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/refinesearch.html)

Google Scholar Advanced Search (http://scholar.google.com/advanced_scholar_search?hl=en&as_sdt=2,40)

Google Scholar Advanced Search Help (http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/refinesearch.html)

Even More Resources “Google Scholar Advanced Legal Research

Tips” by Josh Camson on Lawyerist.com http://lawyerist.com/google-scholar-advanced-legal-research-tips/

“Advanced Search in Retreat” by Greg R. Notess in Information Today Online (http://www.infotoday.com/online/mar12/On-the-Net-Advanced-Search-in-Retreat.shtml)

My website: http://www.elizabethgeeseyholmes.com