Research Guides: Scholarly Legal Research: Find Articles

Where to Start? - Finding Articles

Complete these steps when looking for articles on your topic.

Step 1 - Legal & Interdisciplinary Databases: Check Westlaw, Lexis, and Hein for law review articles and multidisciplinary databases for non-law articles.
Step 2 - Free Online Databases: Some articles may be found freely online through services such as Google Scholar or the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN)
Step 3 - Interlibrary Loan:This service is available for more than just print books! You may order articles in print or electronically as well.

See below for more information.

Legal Databases

Westlaw
From the homepage select "secondary sources." Then limit to "Legal Newspapers & Newsletters" or "Law Reviews & Journals" and input your keywords.
Lexis
On the content tab, select "secondary sources". In secondary sources, click on "Law Reviews and Journals" followed by a keyword search will produce relevant articles.
HeinOnline
Use the advance search screen and add your keywords to the form. Limit your results by collection. Focus on the "law journal library" and "core US journals".

Primo - Finding Articles

You can use Primo to find articles in the the library's collection of journals. Use the search box below to get started.

Find Journals by Title

Use this search box when you know the journal title you're looking for. If you're looking for articles by subject, see the Find Articles tab.

Multidisciplinary Databases

As part of the UMass system, we also have access to a variety of multidisciplinary databases that the main campus provides. These resources could come in handy when you are exploring an area of the law that involves aspects of psychology, sociology, health sciences, etc.

Follow this link for a clickable list of Carney Library databases.

Here are two popular databases:

JSTOR
This resource requires that you login using your UMass Dartmouth credentials. JSTOR offers a large collection of articles in the arts and sciences, and they also offer full-text books.
Academic One File
A good general source for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics: business, computers, current events, economics, education, environmental issues, health care, hobbies, humanities, law, literature and art, politics, science, social sciences, sports, technology, and many general interest topics. Updated daily.

Open Access Databases (free online)

Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN) This link opens in a new window
SSRN is a resource to search and browse full-text preprints of scholarly research (in other words, a scholarly article/paper as it exists before final editing, review, and/or publishing). While it formerly focused on social science, all disciplines are included.
Digital Commons Network This link opens in a new window
Find full text, peer-reviewed journal articles as well as book chapters, dissertations and theses, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work on all subjects hosted by universities and colleges worldwide. Browse by subject or search for specific keywords or works.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar can be a helpful supplement to the library's suite of databases. In particular, Google Scholar is helpful for performing forward citation searches. When using Google Scholar be sure to evaluate your source carefully. Link Google Scholar to UMD Libraries to determine if the library owns the item.

Interlibrary Loan

Can't find the full text of an article? Email the article information to lawlib@umassd.edu and we will request it through interlibrary loan.

Librarian, UMass Law Library

Jessica Almeida

she/her

Email Me

Contact:

jessica.almeida@umassd.edu

Law Library
333 Faunce Corner Road
Dartmouth, MA 02747

508-985-1194

Subjects: Law