Internet research

Types of searches

“known item” topical exhaustive current awareness

“One quick search” strategy

What’s out there?

“raw materials” not value-added recent materials better on human rights,

environment, than business-related topics

lots of junk

“Cat and Girl” --Dorothy Gambrell

Search engines (SEs)

index the web, create their own database

scan their database when you search

return results by relevance cover different sets of webpages work literally

semi-literal search engines“Speed Bump” –David Coverly

Implications of how SEs work

SEs can’t reach all data on the web –”invisible web” (e.g., LexisOne requires password; library catalogs require a search)

Use more than one SE when can’t find something, or when you need to be exhaustive

New stuff can be hard to find

Alternatives to search engines

Go where the news is (e.g., UN News Service, EU Press Room, government agencies)

Go where the databases are (library catalogs, cases, statutes)

Research guides

GlobaLex for foreign/international law guides -- http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/index.html

ASIL Electronic Resources Guide for international topics -- http://www.asil.org/erghome.cfm

LLRX.com for other foreign/international law guides-- http://www.llrx.com/international_law.html

Iterative searching

you probably already do this refine search by adding or

discarding terms

Specific info on how Google works

designed to give good answers to short search strings

Less can be more; always fear unreliable info from your source

Google suggests alternative spellings, not good on some

Don’t ask questions; do ask “answers” Don’t specify type of document (e.g.,

report, discussion, paper)

Advanced searching

restrict your search to a site; e.g., site:www.worldcourts.com

search for synonyms; e.g., Rwanda tribunal OR ictr

eliminate terms; e.g., trafficking –drug –narcotics

restrict your search for a document title: e.g., allintitle:resolution 1441

Foreign language

British spellings (e.g., labour) Google is inconsistent in treatment

of letters with diacritical marks as different from letters without those marks --try both for completeness

Be flexible; try alternate spellings

Google Book Search & Google Scholar

Google Scholar -- searches full-text of scholarly journals

Google Book Search –searches full-text of books

access to complete text varies sometimes better than library

catalogs or journal indexes