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Law and Legal Studies

This guide lists American University Library databases, print sources, and free Web sites of use to research in Legal Studies.

Law Journal Articles

History Journal Articles

Latin America and the Caribbean Journals Databases

The following databases have journal articles that focus on Latin America and the Hispanic population. Many of the journals are from Latin America. Unless listed as a "free resource," all the databases are restricted to AU-only icon.

Multidisciplinary Bibliographic Databases

AU-only icon

More Multidisciplinary Bibliographic Databases

Use these databases if a comprehensive search is needed. They are not a good place to start one's research. AU-only icon

Search Tips

Boolean operators:

AND - use to narrow a search and get fewer and more relevant results.
elections and voters

OR - use to broaden a search and get more results. Good for synonyms and words with variant spellings. Add parentheses when using OR.
("latin america" or argentina or colombia)
(organization or organisation)

NOT - use to narrow a search to get more relevant results
mexico not "new mexico"


Truncation:

Use to find words with different word endings. Most databases use an asterisk (*)
e.g. immigrant* yields immigrant, immigrants
e.g. immigra* yields immigrant, immigrants, immigrate, immigration, immigrating, etc.

Proximity search:

Use to find words that are close to each other on a page.
It is one way to find more relevant results.

Each family of databases has its own command words.

EBSCO:
n= words near another word in any order, within a certain number
fundamental* n3 islam*

Factiva:
near= words near another word in any order, within a certain number
president* near3 speech

HeinOnline
~
= words near each other in any order, within a certain number
"watershed planning"~10

Nexis Uni:
w/#=words within a specified number of words, in any order
"human rights" w/2 violations

w/s = words within the same sentence
crime w/s (dc or "district of columbia")

w/p = words within the same paragraph
gays w/p military

Ovid:

adj# = words near another word in any order, within a certain number

ProQuest:
near/= words near another word in any order, within a certain number
"renewable energy" near/5 viable

Scopus
w/# 
= words near another word in any order, within a certain number

Web of Science:
near/= words near another word in any order, within a certain number
government near/3 fund*