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Internet research
Types of searches
“known item” topical exhaustive current awareness
“One quick search” strategy
What’s out there?
“raw materials” not value-added recent materials better on human rights,
environment, than business-related topics
lots of junk
“Cat and Girl” --Dorothy Gambrell
Search engines (SEs)
index the web, create their own database
scan their database when you search
return results by relevance cover different sets of webpages work literally
semi-literal search engines“Speed Bump” –David Coverly
Implications of how SEs work
SEs can’t reach all data on the web –”invisible web” (e.g., LexisOne requires password; library catalogs require a search)
Use more than one SE when can’t find something, or when you need to be exhaustive
New stuff can be hard to find
Alternatives to search engines
Go where the news is (e.g., UN News Service, EU Press Room, government agencies)
Go where the databases are (library catalogs, cases, statutes)
Research guides
GlobaLex for foreign/international law guides -- http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/index.html
ASIL Electronic Resources Guide for international topics -- http://www.asil.org/erghome.cfm
LLRX.com for other foreign/international law guides-- http://www.llrx.com/international_law.html
Iterative searching
you probably already do this refine search by adding or
discarding terms
Specific info on how Google works
designed to give good answers to short search strings
Less can be more; always fear unreliable info from your source
Google suggests alternative spellings, not good on some
Don’t ask questions; do ask “answers” Don’t specify type of document (e.g.,
report, discussion, paper)
Advanced searching
restrict your search to a site; e.g., site:www.worldcourts.com
search for synonyms; e.g., Rwanda tribunal OR ictr
eliminate terms; e.g., trafficking –drug –narcotics
restrict your search for a document title: e.g., allintitle:resolution 1441
Foreign language
British spellings (e.g., labour) Google is inconsistent in treatment
of letters with diacritical marks as different from letters without those marks --try both for completeness
Be flexible; try alternate spellings
Google Book Search & Google Scholar
Google Scholar -- searches full-text of scholarly journals
Google Book Search –searches full-text of books
access to complete text varies sometimes better than library
catalogs or journal indexes
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