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LGL 110: Introduction to Law and the Legal Assistant (Alexandria)

Direct comments to aanderson@nvcc.edu

Article Databases

Here are a few places you can find articles from newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals. Remember that you will have to login with your myNOVA username and password to use these resources when off-campus.

Law Reviews in Westlaw

Law reviews are journal articles with analysis.

On the Westlaw search page:

  • Select Secondary Sources
    • Select Law Reviews & Journals
      • Select a State or Topic, or type your topic in the search box.

Search Tips

Select the most important 2-4 words related to your topic.  Put the word AND between each new word or idea; this tells the database to look for resources with ALL your terms.

patriot act AND terrorism


Use quotation marks ( "  " ) around phrases (two or more words); this tells the database to look for the words in a specific way.

"patriot act" AND terrorism


Use the exclamation point in Westlaw (!) or an asterisk in other databases (*) to truncate a word; this tells the database to look for all words that have the same base.  In the example below, search results would include "terror," "terrorist," "terrorists," and "terrorism."

"patriot act" AND terror!
"patriot act" AND terror*