Introduction & Orientation
Before you get started with your research, watch these short orientation videos from each of your librarians.
This Guide: Researching a Law
Your assignment asks you to research a law affecting environmental quality. You will look for information about:
- the law's history: who was involved, which committee dealt with it
- the law's impact: who the law affects and how it affects them
You will need to use government information resources as well as other kinds of sources such as journals, books, and newspapers to fully understand the law and its impacts.
This guide will show you where to go for these kinds of information, as well as point you toward help in citing your sources for your paper or presentation.
- Research Tips HandoutThis PDF document will help you structure your research and guide where you should look. You can print it out or open it alongside your research to follow along.
Resources for Laws, Regulations, and Court Cases
Researching Laws
- ProQuest CongressionalThis comprehensive database of U.S. Legislative information contains the full-text of bills (1989 to date), laws (1988 to date), the Federal Register (1980 to date), the Code of Federal Regulations, the National Journal (1980 to date), information on members of congress, committees, and congressional publications.
- HeinOnlineProvides access to more than 80 million pages of legal history available in an online, fully-searchable, image-based format. Comprehensive coverage from the inception of more than 1,600 law-related periodicals. In addition to law journals, HeinOnline also contains the Congressional Record Bound Volumes in their entirety.
Researching Regulations
- GovinfoGovinfo is a site produced by the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO) that provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.
Tip:
Need help researching regulations?
This guide from the Library of Congress, research regulations, has more detailed information on how to research regulations and links to find information.
Researching Court Cases
- OyezOyez is a free law project consolidating information from major academic legal projects. It "is a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone."
- Supreme Court & Case Law Research GuideLooking for information about how the Supreme Court works? How cases come to the court? Check out this Research Guide.
Tip:
Need help finding materials from U.S. government sources?
Enter your search terms into the library catalog and use the Advanced Search to limit your Material Type to Government Document. For additional support, see Finding Government Information.
