Scholarly Legal Research: Heinonline

1.       Login using the proxy server[1] URL.  http://lawproxy.lib.hawaii.edu:2048/login?url=http://heinonline.org/HOL/Welcome

2.       For a Law Journal Search:

a.       Click on Law Journal Library.

b.      If you are in the “Citation Navigator” tab, you can input a journal citation to retrieve it.

c.       For a search, click on “Advanced Search.”

d.      SEARCHING GENERALLY.  If you are searching generally, enter your search terms in the “Text” field.  Be sure to use all capital letters for Boolean connections:  AND, OR, NOT.

i.      Example:  “American Samoa” AND citizenship AND unincorporated[2] - 151 results.  Click on “View Matching Text” to determine the relevancy for you.  Since there are too many to sort through we must narrow our search a bit.  Suppose we now have decided to look at the Insular Cases and how they impact citizenship.

1.       Text:  “American Samoa” AND citizenship AND unincorporated

2.       Article Title:  Insular

a.       Using the title field guarantees the relevance of the article and significantly reduces the number of results.

3.       Now there are only 5 results and two of those are student-written notes/comments.

4.       Sort by “Number of times cited by articles” and click “re-display results” to uncover the most cited article, i.e. the article you must cite in your paper.

e.      SEARCH WITH PURPOSE.  If you are searching for something that involves an international law issue, for example, there are some other ways that will help you.

 i.      Subject:  Human rights

ii.      Text:  Korea

iii.      Title:  Convention AND Child (7 results)

iv.      Re-Display Results.  Most cited author.  (William A. Schabas)

v.      Click on the author’s name. He seems to be someone more interested in International Criminal Tribunals than children.

f.        More examples:  

i.       ((hawaii AND overthrow AND  (sovereignty OR "self determination"))

ii.        ((hawaii AND IEP AND placement)) AND subjects:("Education Law")

iii.       (("agricultural tourism" AND Hawaii))

iv.       ((contract AND "medical malpractice" )) AND subjects:("Sports Law")

v.       (("ride sharing" OR "ride share") AND cabs))

vi.       ("digital assets" AND access)) AND subjects:("Trusts and Estates")