Researching  a topic and want to know what congress has had to say about it? One of the best resources for congressional research is ProQuest Congressional .  Why would you use ProQuest Congressional instead of Westlaw and Lexis? Here are some examples.

Let’s say you are writing your paper on the Indian Court of Offenses and want to cite to the 1926 primary source hearings on that subject…it’s on ProQuest Congressional but not on WL or Lexis.  In fact, ProQuest Congressional has documents that go back to 1789! Maybe you are researching the recent Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 but want some historical perspective on the topic. ProQuest Congressional has hearings and congressional reports that pre-date the passage of the original Violence Against Women Act of 1990.  ProQuest also includes document types not found on WL or Lexis, like maps!  

ProQuest Congressional can be found in the drop-down menu on the Library’s website under Library Databases. 

It’s easy to see what you are searching when you go to the Advanced Search screen:

Questions? Ask a Librarian!

AWR Tip

Need Non-legal background information for your paper?

 Try  Research Library! 

Recent searches for PSL students yielded results on: internet gaming and tribes, carbon dioxide emissions, blood alcohol content and Cuba’s new rules on buying and selling real property! 

ProQuest Research Library can be found in the drop-down menu on the Library’s Website under Library Databases.

From business and political science to literature and psychology, ProQuest Research Library™ provides one-stop access to a wide range of popular academic subjects. The database includes more than 5,000 titles - over 3,500 in full text - from 1971 forward. It features a diversified mix of scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, and newspapers.

The Phoenix School of Law Library has put up two new book displays.

One display celebrates Banned Books Week:

The other displays several materials to help with your Advanced Writing Requirement:

Reading my RSS feeds, I came across an interesting topic, which is timely: lawyers and marketing at the Olympics. This one blog post, led me on a quick adventure (seriously like 5 minutes), and I ended up pondering- could someone use this topic for their AWR paper? Anyone? Bueller? Here's what happened:

First I saw this blog post and thought what an interesting job for a lawyer: Olympic Lawyers Shadow Torch's Every Move to Prevent 'Ambush Marketing' (Legal Blog Watch).

Later I saw another blog post on a related note, marketing at the Olympics... and breaking the rules? See, Headphone Maker Beats Marketing Rules at Olympics (CNET.com) followed by a friendly reminder: U.K. Olympic Athletes Banned From Wearing Beats (CNET.com).

Curious about this topic, I Googled "lawyers marketing olympics" and found a law journal article from 1996! See, 3 Vill. Sports & Ent. L.J. 423 (1996) Ambushing the Olympic Games; Davis, Robert N., This article is in the HeinOnline database, and from there I wondered if anyone has written on the subject of ambush marketing since 1996... so I used their ScholarCheck feature. This showed me that there were several articles written since then (2003, 2005), but perhaps an update to these articles is in order?

Image from HeinOnline

In summary, I used an RSS feed of legal blogs to give me current news, which sparked an interest in a topic, which got me to use the HeinOnline database to search law journal articles, which showed me that this topic is in need of another updated article! A great process to find a topic and begin your research for your AWR paper.

What are you writing for your AWR? Do you need help with your research? Check out our AWR Liaison Librarian Program! Or just visit us at the Legal Research Help Desk in the Law Library on the 14th floor! Email us or call us at (602) 682-6898!

Need to better understand how The Bluebook is organized so that you can properly cite cases and statutes, use parentheticals, and Id? Have questions about using KeyCite and Shepard's to determine if your case is good law and to find other materials on point?

This week the Law Library is offering two different workshops. **Snacks will be provided!**

Bluebook Basics - Geared toward the practitioner, this workshop will help you construct citations for your court pleadings and motions.

• Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - 12:00-12:50 pm - 13th floor computer lab

Citators Q&A - This is an informal workshop. You are encouraged to bring your questions about Shepard’s and KeyCite.

• Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - 12:00-12:50 pm - 13th floor computer lab

Can't make it this week? The Law Library offers workshops on many different topics throughout the semester. Take a look at our library workshops page to view a list of descriptions and a link to the workshop calendar.