Journal articles - Secondary source
Why use journal articles?
Journal articles will provide you with more recent information than books and will usually examine a topic in detail. Like books, they will alert you to major cases and legislation. Journal articles can also be used for historical research to determine what was being discussed about a particular issue at a given point in time.
Check the legal research flowchart to help you decide which database is suitable for your area of research:
Stay up to date with law news by reading The Law Society of South Australia's publication: The Bulletin.
LibKey Nomad
LibKey Nomad™ is a browser extension that makes it easy to access journal articles anywhere on the internet.
With the LibKey Nomad extension activated you can access direct links to relevant articles and PDFs on websites such as PubMed, publisher websites, and Wikipedia, with the following icon:
For instructions on how to set up the browser extension, visit the Library Home Page > Latest News > LibKey Nomad.
Check out these useful databases for finding journal articles
| AGIS Plus Text: Authoritative and peer reviewed legal research from the Australasia and Asia-Pacific regions. | Lexis Advance: indexes full articles for legal journals in Australia published by Lexis Nexis. It also provides abstracts to journal articles by other legal publishers. | LegalTrac: Articles from more than 800 legal publications, including major law reviews, bar association journals and seven legal newspapers. | Westlaw: Includes primary law, analytical materials, practice area insights, litigation resources, public records, and more. US, UK, Canada and EU material. |
| ALJI Australian Legal Journals Index (via Westlaw Australia): May be asked to log-in using your UniSA credentials. ALJI allows browsing or searching through journal abstracts, cases referred to, legislative references, and key-citing information by jurisdiction. | HeinOnline the modern link to legal history: Find landmark decisions, access Supreme Court case rulings, and review articles that cite those landmark cases. See the list of Exploring HeinOnline Guides for tips on searching a variety of legal topics. | Lexis Advance US Research: Contains US legal publications, including case reports, legislation, and analytical material, and access to international law journals and news. |
For more useful databases, see the list of law databases.
How do I reference a journal article?
|
Examples |
Harold Luntz, | 'A Personal Journey through the Law of Torts' | (2005) | 27(3) | Sydney Law Review | 393 | , 400 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lord Woolf, | 'Droit Public: English Style' | [1995] | (Spring) | Public Law | 57 | , 60 | |
| Element | Author | Title | Year | Volume and Issue | Journal | Starting Page | Pin-Point |
| Rule | 5.1 | 5.2 | 5.3 | 5.4 | 5.5 | 5.6 | 5.7 |
The correct reference for the first example is:
Harold Luntz, 'A Personal Journey through the Law of Torts' (2005) 27(3) Sydney Law Review 393, 400
Example adapted from the AGLC4 Guide. For more information, consult the fourth edition of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC4). See page 91 for instructions on how to reference journal articles.