Claris Law Legal Blogging Community

Editor: L. Cindy Dabney
Profession: Student

Category: Book Research--Secondary Sources

So the next step in my explanation of secondary sources is how to actually use them in paper. My first advice for any book is that there is probably a page somewhere, usually up front, which tells you exactly how to use the book. This simplifies thing immensely. At times, if your book is obscure enough, when you bring it to a librarian to ask for help he or she will point, and cry "Look, the Winged Victory of Samothrace!" and while you are distracted read this page so they can use the book by the time you return your attention to them. This should always be the first place to look if you are unsure. But I will try to give you a guide anyway.

The first several I mentioned are self explanatory--the dictionary you look up a word as in any other dictionary. The nutshells are meant to be readable as a whole, and probably should be, though they will have tables of contents, and tables of the cases used and such. Hornbooks and loose-leaf services vary from book to book, but each should include an index somewhere, topical, usually, though there are others, and a table of cases. Those you are on your own for, as they vary so greatly. Check for a "how to use this book" page.

Legal encyclopedias are organized topically, just as any other encyclopedia would be, but they are still the first set of books I mentioned that you will need to look in multiple volumes for find what you are looking for. (Not counting the fact that hornbooks and loose leafs can be multiple volumes, they all flow, like a normal book.) It is possible to look only in the main encyclopedia, the spines of the books have a topic to topic organization as other encyclopedias do, for example, volume 3B of CJS which I am looking at right now, is "Alteration of Instruments to Annuities." The problem is that law is such a heavily subdivided area. There are comparatively few main topics, and most everything else falls under something bigger, sometimes thing you could reasonably guess, sometimes not. If you are looking for a dog bite case and knew your stuff you would know that dog bites would be in this volume, because they fall under the heading "Animals." Topics are then cut into chapters, and then sections. You could go to "Animals," and to "Chapter XV. Injuries By Animals To Persons Or Animals." Even then, though, you would have to sift to a lot of entries about other animals that didn't apply to you, so you should consult the index first.

So, you would want to go to the index, a series of smaller paperback volumes following the encyclopedia, and look up 'dogs' there, in the D-F volume. From there, "Dogs" is divided up into many subtopics, taking you all over the place in the encyclopedia itself. Most entries are under "Animals," but there are some that fall under "Evidence", and a few other miscellaneous ones, like "Rails" and "Motor Vehicles." In this case, I chose "viciousness," and specifically "injuries by dogs to persons" which is under the heading "Animals" at section 331. Turning back to CJS 3B, because "Animals" clearly falls between "Alteration of Instruments" and "Annuities," I go to pg 410, where section 331 starts. This is important--most legal books are organized by page number, you see a volume number, a book name, and a page number. Encyclopedias are done by section, so you will get a topic and a section number instead.

So this is the payoff--a little blurb explaining in general terms your issue, and a lot of citations, which can be very useful. You are not done yet, though, a theme that runs though almost all legal books is the check the pocket parts. Pocket parts are how we keep books up to date. The law changes ridiculously quickly, but books are expensive to publish, so most books have a small sheaf of papers stapled in the back called a pocket part. These change regularly, and tell you on the front how current they are. The one in 3B was issued in June 2006, so it is fairly new, though if you are desperate you should still go online or something to make sure nothing has happened in the last month and a half. The pocket part is also organized topically, and then by chapter and finally section, and I don't see anything new for 331, though you should always check. Though sometime a case will have come along that changed the entry itself, and in that case there will be another little blurb, usually a pocket part will just give you new and exciting citations to other material that will be helpful.

That's it for today, tune in next time for ALRs! YAY!