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LGL 218: Criminal Law (Alexandria)

Direct comments to aanderson@nvcc.edu

Article Databases for Magazines, Scholarly Journals & Newspapers

The best way to locate articles - from magazines, newspapers, scholarly journals, and law reviews -- is through library databases.    Here are a few databases that you may find particularly helpful:

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


Most databases use the asterisk (*) 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."  Note that in Westlaw  you use the exclamation point (!) at the end of the word to find words with multiple endings.

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