This page provides starting points for information relevant to your journal and covers the following topics:
As always, if you need additional assistance, please request a Student Consult and we will be glad to help.
MacMillan Law Library has many electronic resources for starting your research or learning about law and religion.
Religion and the Law Collection: This Hein Online collection includes resources on the development, history, organization, and fundamental principles of various world religions. The collection also includes the Christian Legal Society publications, Canon Law publications, publications on Jewish law, relevant Congressional hearings, and selected periodicals and scholarly articles on law and religion.
Oxford Public International Law databases:
Hein Online Foreign & International Law Databases:
Foreign Law Guide: Contains primary and secondary sources of foreign law for more than 170 jurisdictions, including citations to major individual statutes for each country.
NYU GlobaLex Guides: Detailed guides to research in the law of an extensive list of jurisdictions, plus guides to doing comparative law research.
Treatises by topic (list from Georgia State University Law Library)
Legal news and current awareness sources will help you keep track of developments related to your topic and might give you suggestions for issues and cases for your own research.
US Law Week on Bloomberg Law: News stories on significant cases, including from the US Supreme Court, from all areas of law. Its Supreme Court Today Tracker can be used to find the status of cases and to filter cases by topic, including Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, and Family Law.
SCOTUSBlog: News and analysis on US Supreme Court cases
Law.com publications (legal newspapers including local Daily Report). ALM publications are also available on Lexis.
American Society of International Law blogs:
Global Legal Monitor (Law Library of Congress): Includes legal news by topic or jurisdiction
Blogs on Law and Religion include Religion Clause and Wall of Separation.
International Law Blogs: Justia Blawgsearch, ABA Blawg Directory , Opinio Juris, International Law Prof Blog, IntLawGrrls
News sources with good world coverage: New York Times, NPR, CNN, BBC, The Guardian. Find instructions on registering for New York Times Digital Access here.
Your project may require research in journals from disciplines other than law, including psychology, sociology, economics, criminology, and public health. You have access as an Emory student to many other databases of academic journals, both full-text and indexes.
Woodruff Library A-Z Databases: You can browse databases by subject (Islamic Studies, Psychology, LGBT Studies), or search for databases with your search terms ("human rights," statistics) in their database descriptions.
discoverE: The catalog for the Emory libraries is also a database for searching articles in multiple campus databases. Log in first as an Emory user. Use the Combined tab, search, then refine your search results by resource type, subject, or collection. Results will include links to the articles in campus databases.
Multi-disciplinary journal databases:
JSTOR: Full-text, pdf journals, including older volumes. Disciplines include Religion, Jewish Studies, Middle East Studies, Peace & Conflict Resolution.
Academic Search Complete: Multi-disciplinary database of full-text scholarly journals, searchable by full-text and fields. Many articles are available in PDF.
Project Muse: Scholarly journals from major university presses, including journals in History, Religion, Education, and Area and Ethnic Studies.
Databases devoted primarily to Religious Studies:
ATLA Religion Database American Theological Library Association (ATLA) Religion Database with ATLASerials on the EBSCOhost platform.
Index Islamicus Indexes literature on Islam, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Material cited in the Index Islamicus includes not only work written about the Middle East, but also about the other main Muslim areas of Asia and Africa, plus Muslim minorities elsewhere. Over 2,000 journals are monitored for inclusion in the database, together with conference proceedings, monographs, multi-authored works and book reviews. Journals and books are indexed down to the article and chapter level.
Social Science journal databases:
Social Sciences Abstracts: Searchable index of social science journals, including sociology, anthropology, pscychology, and sociology . Full-text available for some results, others with Find it @ Emory links.
PAIS International: Searchable index of articles, books, policy papers, and government documents in public policy, social policy, and social sciences. Results as citations and abstracts with Find it @ Emory links.
ERIC (EbscoHost): Index for education literature, consists of two files: Resources in Education (RIE) and Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE). RIE includes documents, research reports, curriculum and teaching guides, conference papers, and books.
Contemporary Women's Issues: Global information on women from journals, newsletters, and research reports in disciplines including sociology, psychology, law, health, education, and business.
Women's Studies International: Scholarship in feminist research in the areas of sociology, history, political science, and international relations. Sources include journals, newspapers, newsletters, books, reports, and dissertations.
PsycINFO: Searchable database of psychology journals and books. Full-text available for some results, others with Find it @ Emory links.
SocINDEX: Searchable database of sociology journals, books, dissertations, and conference papers. Includes international and non-U.S. journals. Full-text available for some results, others with Find it @ Emory links.
As you work on your spading assignments, you will encounter unfamiliar citations, and you will want to properly cite materials in your own work. Besides your personal copy of the Bluebook, you might use:
The library has copies of the 20th edition of the Bluebook available on reserve at the library service desk.
The T2 tables on foreign jurisdictions are available free on the Electronic Bluebook.
Bieber’s Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations : Look up legal abbreviations, and find citation form for legal materials using this book available in Library Reference.
Hein Online Law Journal Library (and other libraries): The Citation Navigator lets you enter a citation and retrieve the document, and there is also a Bluebook Citation list
JSTOR: "Copy this citation" available in APA, MLA, and Chicago styles
The Greenbook: International Citator and Research Guide: 6-volume set (in progress) with citation rules for foreign and international materials. Service Desk-Reference collection:K89 .I58 2018
Oxford Law Citator (Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Law and Oxford Law Reports): Mouse over or click on linked document names to retrieve a full citation.
You will want to find digitized materials in PDF image form when you can, so you can be sure that the text and page citation of the original matches the citation you are checking, and so you can save and share the document. Not every resource is available online, and those that are may not be available as PDFs. But some of the sources for PDF documents are:
GovInfo: US government publications in PDF, including legislative history documents, the US Code, and the Federal Register
Hein Online: Law Journals, US Code, US Supreme Court Library, and the Religion and the Law Collection
JSTOR: Non-law journals in PDF, including older issues
Westlaw: West Reporters with PDF images
SupremeCourt.gov: PDF opinions, orders, and reporter bound volumes
Official Gazettes and primary documents for many countries are online, frequently in PDF. Find links using the Law Library of Congress: Guide to Law Online: Nations of the World.
HathiTrust Digital Library of digitized books, manuscripts, and historical documents.
The Making of Modern Law databases have digitized historical treatises and primary materials, including foreign materials.
Many of the Emory's ebook databases have books and treatises in PDF or other image formats. Find them by searching titles in discoverE.
You will need to do a preemption check to make sure that your idea is original. To do this, you should do a thorough search of the legal literature to determine if another author has already published on your topic, using the same analysis as yours.
Start by compiling a list of search terms that will retrieve any articles similar to your proposed comment.
Search for recent law review articles on your topic in the law journal databases on Westlaw and Lexis. If your proposed comment is based on a case or statute, you should also use Keycite on Westlaw and Shepards on Lexis to find articles analyzing the case or statute.
You might also search in the Current Index to Legal Periodicals on Westlaw, a weekly index service arranged by subject area to find the most recent law journal articles in a subject area.
To find working papers and pending law review articles, search the abstracts in the Legal Scholarship Network, a division of SSRN, and the articles in the bepress Legal Repository. Academic legal blogs, such as the Legal Theory Blog and the blogs in the Law Professor Blogs Network, sometimes post announcements of new legal scholarship.
You should also check for books and book chapters that might have been published on your topic, using discoverE, the Emory University Libraries catalog, and WorldCat, a catalog of the holdings of U.S. and international libraries.
Be sure to keep checking for new articles on your topic, and other developments that might affect your research, using alerts on Westlaw and Lexis, and by following topical legal blogs and newsletters.
Some other legal research guides on preemption include:
Use research guides to find resources and links specific to Law and Religion, Foreign Law, or International Law
Research Strategy for Academic Writing
Pitts Theology Library's Research Guides
Woodruff Library's Research Guides by Subject, including History, Interdisciplinary Studies, International, Jewish Studies, and Religion
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