Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• use Google to search for information on law and related topics
• properly interpret the results of a Google search
• modify a Google search to produce better results
• restrict a search using domain names and formats
• use Google's Advanced Search function
• employ Google Scholar to find article on law and related topics
• use Google Books to discover books with content relevant to your research

Google

Google is the best search tool for serious academic purposes. The Google search engine:

• indexes more of the Web than any other search engine
• includes Adobe Acrobat (PDF) documents and Microsoft Word files in its
  index (unlike most other search engines)
• enables you to restrict your search to particular parts of the Web, to specific file types, and even to individual sites.

Using Google

To go to Google, simply launch your Web browser and type: http://www.google.com in the Address Box and then press the Enter key.

Basic search

To perform a basic search, just enter your keyword(s) in the Search Box and click on the Google Search button. As a default, your search will be run across Google's index of all Web content. Google then displays a list of Web pages which include your keyword(s). With Google, you don't need to use the Boolean operator AND or the + sign (one or the other of these operators is necessary with most search engines). Google inserts an AND between keywords automatically.

To search for information on the High Court of Australia, simply enter the keywords high court australia and Google will provide you with a list of relevant hits.

To find phrases, enclose your keywords in quotation marks (eg "susan mary kiefel").

As the above example indicates, Google is not case-sensitive. Search on mICHAel DONALD Kirby or michael donald kirby or Michael Donald Kirby and you will get the same result.

After you have entered your keywords, you have the option of clicking on the I'm Feeling Lucky button. This button takes you straight to the page which best matches your keywords. Google has other specialised options. The links on the top of the Search box take you to the Advanced Search window and allow you to change some preferences.

There are many more features of the basic Google search window. By clicking in the check box next to the words pages from Australia, you can restrict your search to Australian content.

Interpreting your results

At first glance, you might be confused by the way in which Google displays the results of your search. In fact, it is suprisingly simple. To view a search result, click on the page title (in blue) or the page URL (in green). A more detailed break-down of the Google search result window appears below.

Modifying your search

Usually you start your Google search by using one or two keywords. If this process results in too many hits, you will need to narrow your search by adding additional keywords to the terms in the Search box. At other times, you need to exclude a term. To do this, you insert the minus ("-") operator (actually, a hyphen) immediately before the keyword you wish to exclude. To find information about statutory interpretation which does not include reference to constitutional law, you could use the search "statutory interpretation" -constitutional.

Using OR

Google supports the OR operator. Use this operator if you need to use a keyword which is spelt in a number of ways or to search on the basis of close synonyms: email OR e-mail.

Note that the OR operator must be in uppercase. It is possible to combine the use of quotation marks and the OR operator. For example, to search for pages on organisational behaviour (Australian/English spelling) or organizational behavior (US spelling), you can enter the following search: "organisational behaviour" OR "organizational behavior".

Site searches

If you know that the information you require is somewhere on a particular site, you can restrict your search to that site. Do this by entering your keywords followed by the word "site" and a colon followed by the domain name. For example, to find information about law on the site of the University of Sydney, enter the search law site:www.usyd.edu.au.

Using part sentences

Keywords and Boolean operators are all useful. But sometimes, you need to change your approach. Google's indexing software relies on words, not terms or subject headings. As a result, Google doesn't know the context or meaning of individual words, as might a librarian or indexer. This means that it is easy to use keywords to find the answers to some questions, but not others.

Let's take a simple example. If you need to find information about Sir Edmund Barton, you can easily search Google using the phrase "Edmund Barton". But, what if you needed to find out the name of first Prime Minister of Australia?

The usual approach would be to identify some keywords (eg first prime minister australia) and combine these to create your search. Unfortunately, this set of keywords will return a large number of irrelevant pages: all those which include the word first and some reference to the Prime Minister of Australia. You might find a page about Edmund Barton, but you will also find pages which refer to John Watson (the first Labor Prime Minister) or James Scullin (the first Prime Minister from an Irish background).

The answer is to think in terms of part sentence or phrases, not keywords. Consider how the information you need is likely to be expressed. The identity of the first Australian PM is probably contained in phrases like:

• X was the first Prime Minister of Australia
• X, the first Prime Minister of Australia
• Y appointed X first Prime Minister of Australia.

Each phrase has the same few words in common: first Prime Minister of Australia. So, let's enclose these words in quotation marks and use "first Prime Minister of Australia" as our search. If we do, Google will give us a long list of pages which refer to Edmund Barton as the first Australian Prime Minister.

The same trick can be used answering other questions. It's particularly good with figures, dates, definitions and other "facts".

Try the following searches:

• "Marcus Einfeld was born in"
• "a statute of limitations is "
• "acts of the oireachtas are"
• "the Privy Court is".

By all means use keywords and Boolean logic as your basic tools in constructing a Google search, but where these don't work (or are inappropriate), think in terms of part sentences. In many cases, this simple trick will get you the results you need with a minimum of fuss.

Using domain names

As discussed earlier, using site: you can limit your search to sites from a particular Web domain (eg www.usq.edu.au). You can also exclude a domain. To exclude a domain use the syntax site:www.courts.qld.gov.au.

Google also allows you to limit your search to sites from a particular country or to a type of site (eg all .com sites). To restrict your search by domain, type your search terms, followed by site: and a country code (site:.au, site:.uk etc) or domain code (site:.com, site:.edu, site:.edu.au). For example, use admission site:.edu.au to find admission information for different Australian universities or use refugees site:.au to locate Australian pages which discuss refugee issues.

Making use of domain name restrictions

To make the best use of this feature, you need to know a little bit about Web addressing conventions. Every country has its own two-letter country code. These codes include: .au (Australia), .ca (Canada), .de (Germany), .fr (France), .jp (Japan), .my (Malaysia), .sg (Singapore), .uk (United Kingdom), .us (United States).

If an address doesn't include a country code, it's probably in the United States. For historical reasons the US country code is rarely used.

In addition, to these country codes, there are a number of domain codes which relate to different areas of activity. In the Anglo-Saxon world, these domain codes come in two flavours: the UK and US standards. Australia follows the US model and New Zealand, for example, conforms to the UK system. Common codes are: .ac (UK academic) .com (US company) .co (UK company) .edu (educational institution), .gov (US government), .mil (US military), and org. (non-profit organisation). There are some newer domains, such as .biz (business), but the great majority of Web addresses are based on the older system.

Restricting your search by format

Google allows you to search for documents in different formats. These include Word files (.doc), PowerPoint files (.ppt), Excel spreadsheets (.xls) and publications in Adobe Acrobat format (.pdf). This feature can be particulary useful when you need to find specific sorts of information.

By restricting your search to Adobe Acrobat files, you will often improve the quality of your results, as Acrobat is frequently used for the online publication of academic or official documents. To restrict your search to files in a particular format, type your search term followed by the word "filetype" and a colon followed by the relevant abbreviation. As an example, to find Adobe Acrobat files on e-commerce, you can type: e-commerce filetype:pdf.

Advanced searches

The Advanced Search window is designed to provide you with extra search capabilities with a minimum increase in complexity.

Below is a break-down of the functions of the Advanced Search window.

Using Google Scholar

Google Scholar allows you to run a Web search which is (in the main) restricted to high-quality, scholarly literature. Items in Google Scholar's index include citations, full text peer-reviewed articles, theses, books, preprints, abstracts, conference papers and scientific reports. Much of this material is difficult to access in other ways.

Google Scholar works with many university libraries in Australia to determine their journal access rights, and then links to articles from those sources when they are available.

Google Scholar will display a link to the full-text of an article when this is available to staff and students at your institution. To make these links appear, use Google Scholar from a computer on your university campus. If you are off-campus, follow these steps:

• Go to Google Scholar
• Click on Scholar Preferences
• Type the name of your library in the Library Links search
  box
• Click on the check box next to the name of your library
• Click Save preferences.
• Start searching.

If you don't see these links or you can't find your campus library in the list, contact the library staff and tell them about Google Scholar's Library Links program.

Author Searching

Google Scholar allows you to search for an article or articles using the author: operator. This can be combined with the author's last name and one or more initials in quotation marks.

For example, if you wish to find articles by Professor Ian Freckelton at the University of Sydney, use author:"i freckelton". If you wish, you can narrow your search by using the author's full name, eg author: "Ian Freckelton". This is usually not recommended, as you will miss citations that are limited to last name and one or more initials.

Title searching

If you wish to restrict you search to a particular article, use the intitle: operator. For example: intitle:"Lies, personality disorders and expert evidence". Running this search in Google Scholar finds a single result, a reference to the article in question.

If you simply put the title in quotation marks, Google Scholar will find both the article and any other sources which refer to it. eg "Lies, personality disorders and expert evidence" finds 7 hits.

Using Google Scholar to find a literature review A useful trick is including the phrase "literature review" in your search of Google Scholar. Enter the search"literature review" "abortion law" in the Search box below. Make certain that both phrases are in quotation marks. Click on Search. How many relevant hits did you find? What is the benefit of using this search approach.

Restricting sources

You can restrict your search to a particular journal, but this requires the use of Google Scholar's Advanced Search.

Follow these steps:

• click on the Advanced Scholar Search link
• enter your keywords
• enter the title of the journal (or a standard abbreviation for the title) in the Return articles published in box
• click on the Search Scholar button.

Journal titles can be abbreviated in different ways, so you may need to try several different title combinations and abbreviations in order to get complete results.

Date restrictions

You can also restrict your search to a particular date range. Follow these steps:

• click on the Advanced Scholar Search link
• enter your keywords
• enter the range of years in the date boxes
• click on the Search Scholar button.

This looks simple, but there are problems. If Google Scholar was unable to determine an article's publication date, it will omit the article from the search results entirely, even if the article was actually published within the particular date range.

Limiting subject areas

In Advanced Scholar Search, you can limit your search to particular subject areas by clicking in the appropriate check boxes.

Finding articles with Google Scholar Click on the Play button below to find out how you can find articles on a particular topic using Google Scholar. This example shows how to find full-text articles on diabetes and Indigenous Australians in less than a minute.

Using Google Books

Google Books is an excellent means of searching for new books on a topic and sampling their contents before you buy them or put in an document delivery request. To search Google Books:

• go to the Google Books site
• enter your keyword or phrase in the Search Box
• click the Search button.

Google Books will display a list of books which include your keywords in their contents. Click on the book title or the book thumbnail to view the page where your keyword or phrase appears.

Google Books and the Free Lunch How useful is Google Books? Click on the Play button below to find out.

The first time you use Google Books, you will see a message asking you to sign in before you can view a book. Below this message will be a place for you to enter your Google Account details.

If you don't have a Google Account, click on the Create a Google Account link. It only takes a few moments to set up a Google Account and there is no charge. Once you have created a Google Account, you can view a number of pages from a book. Occasionally, you can view the whole book.

When viewing the contents of a book, you will see the Search in this book box on the right side of your screen.

You can enter keywords or phrases in this book to search the full-text of the book.

In addition, Google Books provides links to online book sellers so that you can buy the title, often quite cheaply if you can find the title second-hand.

Google Books Advanced Search

The Advanced Search feature allows you to locate books by author, title, ISBN and date. In addition, you can use a range of options to narrow or broaden your search using different keywords and phrase.

Library Catalogue Search

Google Books has a useful function called Find this Book in a Library. If this service is available for the title, the Find this book in a library link is displayed next to the initial page display.

Clicking on Find this book in a library link will take you to the appropriate page in WorldCat or Libraries Australia. Using the information on this page you can discover which major libraries in Australia have this title.

Google Toolbar

Google provides a free widget which adds a Google search box to your browser window. Using the toolbar, you can search Google without going to the Google site. In additon, this tool includes a range of features such as:

• instant suggestions as you enter your search terms
• rapid customisation so that you can restrict your search to particular sites
• a pop-up blocker
• an auto-complete function for Web forms
• automatic translation of foreign-language Web pages to English.

The Google Toolbar is available for Internet Explorer 6.0+ and for Firefox
1.5+.

Summary

This module has dealt with the following:

• using Google to find information about law-related topics
• interpreting Google search results and modifying your search
• using Google's Advanced search
• finding journal articles using Google Scholar
• accessing the full text of books using Google Books.