Starting Your Research | Laurier Library

This page provides guidance for researchers, including links to library resources, tutorial videos and slide presentations, and related websites. Covers general and legal research skills, resources for legal context, and sources like news databases and sites, and law blogs. Also contains links to legal and regular dictionaries and thesauri.

Getting Started

Start with news articles and encyclopedias to gain a general understanding of your topic. Use this information to generate a list of keywords to help you in your main search. It's okay to use Google, Wikipedia, or other online non-scholarly resources to help you get familiar with your topic, just keep in mind you usually cannot cite them as sources in your work. When you search online, remember to test any website you visit for currency, relevance, authority, accuracy and purpose. Follow this link to learn about evaluating resources.

Depending on your topic, you may need to search broadly using Omni, Laurier Library's academic research tool, and our interdisciplinary databases. Omni captures a lot of information, but it's not infallible; you should always visit appropriate databases and search them directly as well. Visit the Introduction page of this guide for a list of relevant databases, or visit the full list of available databases.

Watch this video for a quick demo on how to develop a search strategy.

Click here for quick videos about evaluating resources.

Click here for a guide to reading strategies for scholarly materials.

Online Guides to Canadian Legal Research

The Canadian Legal Research and Writing Guide

Legal Research and Writing: Ted Tjaden

Student Guide for Legal Research - The Great Library

Queen's University Library - Legal Research Manual

Suggested Legal Encyclopedias & Commentary Materials

CanLII Commentary (secondary law materials)

Charterpedia (legal information about the Canadian Charter)

Table of Contents for Halsbury's Laws of Canada is located in Lexis Advance Quicklaw (on main page under "Popular Sources")

Indigenous Peoples and the Law in Canada: Cases and Commentary: 2023

Other Places to Find Legal Context

In general, it is best to rely on legal information created within the legal system of the country you are studying along with academic sources. However, sometimes secondary material can be helpful.

First Peoples Law Blog

The blog of First Peoples Law. Updated frequently and focused on Indigenous people and Canadian law.

Lawblogs.ca

is an open directory with listings of blogs maintained by lawyers, law librarians, marketers, IT professionals or paralegals in Canada. Blogs of particular note are Michael Geist and law school faculty blogs.

Slaw

is an online legal magazine, written by and for the Canadian law community including lawyers, librarians, technologists, marketers, students, and educators.

Suggested News Sources

CPI.Q (Canadian Newspapers and Magazines)

CBC Curio (Educational audio and video programs and documentaries from CBC and Radio-Canada)

CBC Digital Archives (CBC radio and television news clips, interviews, and more, documenting numerous aspects of Canadian life and history)

Canadian News - ProQuest (Searching both Canadian Newsstand Complete and CBCA - access to Canadian journals, magazines and news resources on all topics)

The Agenda @ TVO (TVO's flagship current affairs program, devoted to exploring social, political, cultural, and economic issues)

Nexis Uni (Full-text documents for international news, business, legal research, and key people in the news. )

Factiva (A full-text resource with news, business information and journal articles drawn from almost 9000 worldwide sources, including Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and the KW Record)

Suggested Keywords

Try using the following terms when searching our databases: Law, Canon law, Culture and law, Justice, International law, Environmental law, Statutes, Technology and law, Legislation, Jurisprudence, Public relations and law, Procedure (Law), Formalities (Law), Law -- Canadian, etc.

Don't forget to combine these keywords with the topic-specific ones you develop on your own.

Black's Law Dictionary

Canadian Legal Words and Phrases (Quicklaw)

The Concise Dictionary of Crime and Justice

A Dictionary of Law (UK)

Parry and Grant Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law

Webster's New World Law Dictionary

Several Dictionaries in Lexis Advance Quicklaw (Browse>Sources>Canada>By Category>Dictionaries)

Thesaurus.com

The Merriam-Webster Thesaurus

Thesaurus Search - National Criminal Justice Reference Service (more of a subject heading list than a thesaurus)