Research Support Guide for Law Postgraduate Students and Academic Staff

Browse More than 2,700 Journals

Browse titles in the Law Journal Library using the A-Z index at the top of the page. Alternatively, browse journals published by state, country, subject, edit type, and most-cited.

View the Most-Cited Authors & Journals

The Most-Cited browse area displays the most cited authors, articles, and journals, as well as the top 50 articles and top 250 authors as determined by several metrics. These metrics include the number of times cited by articles and cases as well as the number of times accessed by other HeinOnline users within a rolling 12-month period. These metrics are part of HeinOnline's ScholarCheck tool.

Author Profile Pages

Author profile pages display an author's list of articles as well as ScholarCheck metrics. Profiles can be enhanced to include a photo, biography, and links to social media and website pages.

Main Search Bar Tips

The main search bar is stationary throughout HeinOnline. After entering the Law Journal Library, the Full-Text search tab option on the search bar will search within only this database. Click Advanced Search to expand search fields or to perform a more specific or date-limited search. Click Search Help for a quick reference guide to commonly used search syntax.

Using the Main Search Bar

Search for articles pertaining to a topic using the main search bar. For example, enter the phrase “impeachment process” inside quotation marks into the search bar. Results can be refined using the facets on the left side of the page. Available facets include the date, section type, topic, location, person, organization, title, edit type, language, country concerning, country published, and state published. Terms matching the search query appear in bold text within the matching text page snippets. Sort search results by relevance, volume date, and more. Find cited-by information and access tools, such as an instant-PDF download, on the right side of each search result.  Use the icons next to the sort-by bar to modify your current search, search within results, toggle all matching text pages, or turn OFF infinite scroll.

Using the Advanced Search Option

Click the Advanced Search link located beneath the main search bar to perform a more specific search. Use various metadata fields, such as Text, Article Title, Author/Creator, and more. For example, to search for articles by former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. that pertain to election financing: In the author/creator field enter Joseph R. Biden Jr. and in the text field enter the words election AND financ* using capital letters for the Boolean operator (AND). The wildcard (*) searches for variations of a word such as finance, financing, etc. Additional options in the Advanced Search tool include searching by article topic, by publication citation or title, date range selection, and section type selection.

While Google-type searching will work in HeinOnline, advanced searching techniques may be used to formulate more specific searches. Either method will produce on-point results, but using the syntax described below will help to refine those results.

When forming a search query using the main search bar or advanced search options, you may use Boolean Operators (AND, +, OR, NOT, -) to combine multiple terms. If using these operators, you must capitalize the words AND, OR, and NOT to form the most effective search queries. Additionally, quotations are important when searching for a phrase or multiple phrases. Below are a few tips for building search queries using the Advanced and main search bar options.

Tip #1 – Boolean Operators must be all CAPITALS. Use AND vs. and, OR vs. or, NOT vs. not. Using lower case operators can greatly impact the quantity and quality of your search results.

Example: “power imbalance” OR “power balance in mediation”

Tip #2 – A phrase must be enclosed in “quotation marks”. When building a search query, use quotations around a phrase to ensure that your results include documents containing the entire phrase.

Example: “global warming”

The above tips are applicable when building a search query in the main search bar or Advanced Search options. Note that fields are defined within the Advanced Search tool, so while the search parameters still apply, be sure to search within the appropriate fields. For example, to find articles with both the phrase “civil rights” AND the word criminal within the article title, use the Article Title field:

More Like This

The More Like This button uses a program that finds “interesting words” in an article, as determined by an algorithm that analyzes the article’s text, to find similar articles. Review the list of similar articles and adjust the boost factor on interesting words or enter new terms to change the scope of the results.

The Cite button located above the table of contents provides the document’s citation in multiple citation formats including American Psychological Association (APA), Chicago, Bluebook, Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA), and McGill Guide. Copy and paste the citations, or export to Refworks, export RIS file, or export text file.KeyWord Search Builder

Keyword Search Builder

The Keyword Search Builder uses the same technology as More Like This and is located in the Advanced Search tool. Enter keywords into one or more boxes and use the boost levels to give more weight to the most important terms in the query.

If you know an article’s title, you can quickly search by article title from the HeinOnline Welcome Page or from inside the Law Journal Library.

In this article:

• Search from the Welcome Page
• Search from inside the Law Journal Library
• Search Tips

Search from the Welcome Page:

Enter the article title using the Title field in the Advanced Search tool, which is located beneath the main search bar:

Search from inside the Law Journal Library:

Law Journal Library Homepage

To search for an article by title from within the database, enter the Law Journal Library and use the same Advanced Search tool which is located beneath the main search bar.  Select the Article Title field from the drop-down and insert the name of the article in quotations.  For example:

Search Tips:

• If you run a search for your article title and get no matches, try simplifying your search by using a smaller portion of the article title.
• If after you try simplifying your search you still do not get any results, try picking keywords from the search string and put them into a proximity search.
  • For example,“civil rights criminal offender”~15

ScholarCheck

ScholarCheck Summary                                               

HeinOnline’s ScholarCheck is a series of tools that help researchers quickly locate related material throughout the interface. ScholarCheck:

• Analyzes the most-cited journals, articles, and authors

• Enables users to view and access articles and cases cited by other articles and cases, and to see how many times an article has been accessed by other HeinOnline users within a rolling 12-month period

• Provides inline hyperlinking so users can quickly access related material across HeinOnline and Fastcase content

• Allows users to sort search results by most-cited and most-accessed content

• Calculates metrics for ranking scholarly authors and displays these metrics in Author Profile Pages

ScholarCheck is available in most HeinOnline databases. Look for the ScholarCheck icon to determine where its features can be used.

ScholarCheck in Author Profiles

ScholarCheck is an integral part of author profile pages in HeinOnline. Metrics counted for each author include:

• Number of times cited by articles (total)

• Number of times cited by cases

• Number of times accessed

• Number of times cited by articles in the past 10 years

• Number of times cited by articles within the past 1-2 years

The following metrics are counted but do not contribute to the author’s overall rank:

• The average number of citations per article

• Number of self-citations

Learn more about ScholarCheck with this PDF guide.

MyHein

Creating an Account

MyHein is HeinOnline’s personal research tool. Bookmark articles, save search queries, set up eTOC alerts, and more.

To create an account, use the MyHein drop-down from the upper right side of any page in HeinOnline and select Create an Account.

After creating your account, you will receive an email confirming your username and password. To access your MyHein account, you must be logged in to HeinOnline. Click Login from the MyHein option to access your personal research account from any HeinOnline account.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks can be created from search results or from within a document. From search results, click Save to MyHein from an individual result, or select several results to save them all at once. To save a bookmark from inside a document, click the blue bookmark icon. Bookmarks can be saved to multiple tags.

Citation Navigator

Multiple databases in HeinOnline have their own Citation Navigators. From within a database, click the “Citation” tab above the search bar. If the database has its own Citation Navigator, a “Citation Navigator” option will appear below the search bar.

For example, the Law Journal Library has its own Citation Navigator:

Knowledge Base Articles

HeinOnline's Knowledge Base contains hundreds of articles, training guides, and videos pertaining to the use of HeinOnline. These articles are specific to the Law Journal Library.

Law Journal Library Knowledge Base Content

Videos

Using HeinOnline

Linking a Pre-Existing ORCID Account to HeinOnline

ORCID provides a unique, persistent identifier to distinguish researchers and allow them to showcase their research outputs and activities. Learn more about ORCID. Haven’t registered for an ORCID account? Learn how to create an ORCID account and link it to HeinOnline.

If you have created an ORCID account in the past, follow the below instructions to smoothly link the existing account to HeinOnline.

Navigate to https://orcid.org/signin and enter your email or ORCID iD as well as your ORCID password.

To connect your ORCID iD to HeinOnline, your visibility settings must be set to either “Everyone” or “Trusted parties.” You can easily adjust these settings within your ORCID account. Learn more about ORCID’s visibility settings.

Find Your ORCID Account Settings

After signing into your ORCID account, you will be redirected to your personal ORCID record. To adjust your settings, locate “Account Settings” within the drop-down next to your profile name at the top of the page.

Adjust Your Visibility Preferences

Under “Account Settings,” locate the Visibility preferences section and click “Edit.” Ensure that you have selected either “Everyone” or “Trusted parties” in this section. Note: To connect your ORCID account to HeinOnline, you must select one of these visibility settings. 

Now that your ORCID account is ready to go, you can connect it to HeinOnline via your author profile page. Discover how to locate your personal author profile page in HeinOnline.

Click “Register or Connect Your ORCID iD”

A button to register or connect your ORCID iD will display on your author profile page in HeinOnline. Click the button to proceed with your ORCID iD alignment.

Upon clicking the button, you may be prompted to sign in to your ORCID account if you have not recently done so.

Authorize HeinOnline to Fully Integrate with ORCID

To fully integrate your HeinOnline and ORCID profiles—including being able to showcase your HeinOnline articles in ORCID—you will need to authorize the following permissions. Note: If you select “Deny,” you will not be able to fully integrate your HeinOnline and ORCID profiles.

After selecting “Authorize,” you will be prompted to log in to HeinOnline one final time to align your ORCID iD. If your iD aligned correctly, it will display on your profile as below:

Congratulations! You have created an ORCID account and successfully linked it to your HeinOnline author profile page.

To get the most out of this integration, send your list of HeinOnline articles to your ORCID profile. From your author profile page, select the “Send works to ORCID” link underneath your ORCID iD. You will be redirected to a list of your current works in HeinOnline. Check the boxes next to the desired articles and click submit.

Successfully sending the works to ORCID will allow them to appear on your ORCID profile to either everyone or trusted parties of your choosing, depending on the visibility settings you chose in the beginning. You can also adjust the visibility settings for each individual article. View your list of works in ORCID at https://orcid.org/my-orcid.

This video explains how to download and print HeinOnline documents also discusses file sharing methods.