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Law: Research Support

Guide to law resources at University of Warwick Library. Includes law books, journals, databases, study skills, referencing, legal research and law librarian.

Law - Research Support

Law books on a library shelf

Research and Academic Services

The Research and Academic Services team are part of the University Library. They include librarians and research specialists dedicated to supporting research students and staff at the University of Warwick.

The team provides research support services in the areas of literature searching, reference managementopen research, research data management, and digital scholarship.

Your primary contact is your Research and Academic Support Librarian who can provide subject specialist library support for your departmentand can signpost you to other research support services within the library.

Research and Academic Support Librarian

Profile Photo
Jackie Hanes
Contact:
University of Warwick Library
Gibbert Hill Road, Coventry, CV4 7AL
Tel:+44 (0)24 765 72588

Research Support Contacts

Research and Academic Services also includes specialist research support teams in open research, research data and digital scholarship.

Open Research
Yvonne Budden, Open Research Manager
openaccessfund@warwick.ac.uk 

Warwick Research Archive Portal (WRAP)
WRAP is Warwick's open research repository
publications@warwick.ac.uk

Research Data
To be appointed, Research Data Manager
researchdata@warwick.ac.uk 

Digital Scholarship
To be appointed, Digital Scholarship Manager

Library Researcher Development

Research Refresh
10:30am-12:00pm every Thursday
[REX, Floor 3, Library]
Take a break from your research, grab a coffee and chat to other researchers about PhD Life.

IALS Library

IALS logoInstitute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS)

The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) is part of the School of Advanced Studies at the University of London. The IALS Library is a national legal research library, with impressive law archives and collections.

Membership of IALS Library is available to postgraduate researchers (MPhil and PhD not LLB or LLM) and academic staff from other universities. Please see membership information on the IALS Library website.

Literature Searching

The library offers a wide range of bibliographic databases to support literature searching:

Your Research and Academic Support Librarian can help you plan literature searches and use databases to find academic literature. Contact your librarian to book a 1-2-1 appointment.

Document Supply

Get It For Me is the library's document supply service. It allows researchers to request resources not currently available in the library. To request items, simply complete the relevant request form. The library has a digital first policy and will acquire electronic resources where possible.

  • Book: request purchase of a new book or ebook, and/or inter-library loan from another library
  • Chapter: request digitisation of a chapter in a book
  • Article: request digitisation of an article in a journal
  • Postal Loan: request postal loan of a print only book from library's collection

If you are interested in a trial or subscription to a new journal or database, please contact your Research and Academic Support Librarian.

Current Awareness

Researchers to keep up-to-date with new publications in their discipline. The library's journals and databases include current awareness tools which can alert you to new articles, issues of journals, and citations to articles.

  • Journals: find the journal homepage on the publisher's website and register to receive email alerts to newly published articles and issues. 
  • JournalTOCs: sign-up to alerting service to receive email alerts to newly published articles from a journal and across a discipline.
  • Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science and other subject specialist databases allow you receive email alerts to newly published articles.
  • Lexis+ UK, Westlaw UK and HeinOnline law databases all provide email alerting services to legal developments and new publications

Your Research and Academic Support Librarian can help you use current awareness services. Contact your librarian to book a 1-2-1 appointment.

Referencing

The library provides advice and guidance on plagiarism and referencing to students and researchers.

Your Research and Academic Support Librarian can advise on the OSCOLA referencing style and other referencing conventions used in your discipline. Contact your librarian to ask a question or book a 1-2-1 appointment. 

Reference Management

The library provides advice and guidance on managing literature using reference management software.

  • Collect and save references in an online database.
  • Organise references by topic + add research notes and PDFs.
  • Share references with research collaborators or project groups.
  • Cite references in Microsoft Word in your referencing style.
  • Create a Bibliography in Microsoft Word in your referencing style.

EndNote: the University provides EndNote reference management software, and the library provides EndNote user guides, training and ongoing support. Additionally, your Research and Academic Support Librarian can advise on reference management software. Contact your librarian to ask a question or book a 1-2-1 appointment. Alternatively, contact endnoteweb@warwick.ac.uk

Research Data Management

The library provides advice and guidance on managing your Research Data to ensure that you meet policy and funder requirements. From initial planning, during your active research phase, to archiving and sharing data at the end of your research project.

The library's Research Data Management team can advise on all aspects of RDM including planning, organising, accessing and sharing research data. Contact the RDM team researchdata@warwick.ac.uk to ask a question, book a 1-2-1 appointment or group training session.

Open Research

The library provides advice and guidance on Open Access (OA) publishing to ensure that you meet policy and funder requirements, including compliance with the Research Excellence Framework (REF). The library also manages the university's subscriptions to Read and Publish journals, funds for Article Processing Charges (APCs), and the Warwick Research Archive Portal (WRAP) our open access research repository.

The library's Open Access team can advise on all aspects of open access including policy, funding, compliance and open access articles and monographs. Contact the OA team openaccessfund@warwick.ac.uk to ask a question, book a 1-2-1 appointment or group training session.

Research Metrics

Research metrics or bibliometrics is the statistical analysis of books, articles and other publications. It is an information science used to evaluate research using quantitative methods by counting citations, but can also use alternative measures (altmetrics) to count page views, downloads and social media shares. Research metrics can be used to evaluate articles, journals and authors, as well as research groups and institutions. It can help you to identify research collaborators, where to publish your research and measure the impact of your research.

 

There is concern that research metrics can reinforce inequality in the research environment. There is a move towards Responsible Research Metrics, whereby qualitative and narrative methods are also used to measure research. The university has adopted 10 Principles of Responsible Research Metrics, and is a signatory of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA).

 

Your Research and Academic Support Librarian can help you to find research metrics on library databases. Contact your librarian to ask a question or book a 1-2-1 appointment. The library's Open Access team can advise on advanced aspects of bibliometrics including policy and implications for your research. Contact the OA team scholarlycomms@warwick.ac.uk to ask a question, book a 1-2-1 appointment or group training session.

Research metrics can be a complicated world of acronyms and numbers. If you are using research metrics, it's important to understand what is being measured, the strengths and limitations of the measure, and how research metrics should be used responsibly. The following sources of information provide useful summaries and definitions of research metrics for the beginner.

Metrics Toolkit LogoThe Metrics Toolkit website provides definitions of key research metrics including calculation, use cases and limitations. 
Find definitions of Altmetric (AAS), Citations, Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI), H-Index, Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

 

Scholarly Communication HandbookLai Ma, 'Chapter 6: Research Metrics', in The Scholarly Communication Handbook (London: Facet, 2023)
Further information on Journal Impact factors (JIF), Cite Score, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), Source Normalised Impact Per Paper (SNIP), Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI), Altmetric (AAS), H-Index and responsible metrics.

 

 

Scholarly Communication book cover imageRick Anderson, 'Chapter 10: Metrics and Altmetrics', in Scholarly Communication (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018) 
Further discussion on the limitations of Impact Factor (IF) research metrics and more depth on alterative metrics including Altmetrics, Plum Analytics and ImpactStory. 

Scopus logoScopus - multidisciplinary search engine for academic literature by Elsevier

  • Documents: search for literature, view index and abstract, view references, cited and related documents, citation counts, FWCI and PlumX altmetrics
  • Author: view author profiles including list of publications, co-authors and grants, citations and citing documents, h-index and FWCI
  • Sources: view and compare journal profiles (by title or subject) including list of publications, CiteScore, rank and percentile, SJR and SNIP

Web of Science logoWeb of Science - multidisciplinary search engine for academic literature by Clarivate
Journal Citation Reports - citation metrics and rankings for academic journals by Clarivate

 

  • Documents: search for literature, view index and abstract, view references, cited and related documents, citation counts, journal impact
  • Researcher: view author profiles including list of publications, co-authors and grants, citations and citing documents, and h-index
  • Journal Citation Reports: view and compare journal profiles (by title or subject) including list of publications and citations, journal impact factor (JIF), journal citation indicator (JCI), rank, quartile and percentile.

Dimensions logoDimensions - multidisciplinary search engine and analysis tool for academic research from Digital Science

Dimensions searches for academic research  including research grants, clinical trials, patents and policy documents. View index and abstracts. View references and cited literature. View Dimensions citation counts and Altmetric attention scores, for both all-time and recent time periods. View author profiles, including lists of publications, grants, patents and policy documents, number of citations, affiliations and co-authors.

Google logoGoogle Scholar - multidisciplinary search engine for scholarly literature by Alphabet

Google Scholar searches for academic literature and counts citations to articles, books and chapters. Find cited and related literature. View author profiles, including lists of publications, number of citations, h-index and i10-index. View lists of journal titles by subject based on the h-5 index.

Academic and Legal Research Skills

Dice with letters spelling Study Skills

Study Skills

Discover a range of library and study skills guides including how to study law, how to think critically, and how to write law essays and prepare for examinations.

Scales of justice statue

Legal Research

Discover how to find legislation, case law, and journal articles using law databases, including Doing Legal Research online course and Lexis+ UK and Westlaw UK law database training and certification courses.

Person writing notes

Referencing

Discover how to avoid plagiarism, how to use the OSCOLA legal referencing style, and how to manage references with EndNote referencing software.

TYewriting spelling the word Research

Research Support

Discover the library's support for researchers including literature searching, reference management, research data management, open access and publishing, and research metrics.