Internet Search Engines and Subject Directories for Legal Research
Search Engines and Subject Directories
You can search for legal information on the Internet by using a search engine or a subject directory. Subject directories are created or indexed by people and have some form of classification while search engines are computer generated. Here are some examples:
- Analyse your topic: Identify keywords and terms or any synonyms and write them down.
- If you know the web address or the URL, go straight to the website and use their search engine if there is one.
- All Search engines have information about their search strategies (either it be Boolean Logic or Proximity Operators) .Go to Search Help. Please read this prior to doing a search.
- For a general search, use a general search engine such as Google.
- If the information is more specific in nature, use a general search engine and use their advance searching syntax for searching. Use features like "More Like this" (Google) or 'Results Ranking" (Alta Vista).
- If you a searching for a general information in a specific area or topic, use a subject directory and give preferences to authoritative subject gateways such as AustLII.
- If you are searching for specific information in a specific subject field, specialised search engines such MEDLINE should be used