Journal articles can provide you with more recent information than books and will usually examine a topic in detail. Journal articles can alert you to major cases and legislation as well as provide analysis and opinion and can be useful for supporting your research of primary materials. 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. Articles about cases, or case notes, are generally shorter than scholarly articles, and can help by providing analysis of the key aspects of a case. Find Journal Articles

Before you begin searching:

• Define your topic or research question
• What are the key concepts? 
• Compile a list of keywords and synonyms

In addition to LibrarySearch, the following databases contain journal articles:

When you have a reference to a journal article, you need to find the title of the journal that the article is in and then search the RMIT Library to see if it is held online or in print.

Follow the steps below:

• Make a note of the full citation (volume, title, page, year) eg. 33 Fed. L. Rev. 391 (2005)
• Find the journal title abbreviation in one of the abbreviations lists (see below) ie.  Fed. L. Rev is the Federal Law Review
• To find if it is available search Journals by journal title
• For online journals, select the database that covers the date range you require
• Browse or search for your article 
• For print journals, make note of its location and its call number

Law reports and journal titles appear in legal citations as abbreviations. Use an index to legal abbreviations to get the full title:

Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations

Monash Guide to Legal Abbreviations