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Refer to page 67 of the Beginner's Guide to Legal Skills handbook for notes on Legal Writing.
SECONDARY SOURCES OF LAW
Secondary sources of law provide information about the law. They summarise the area of law, focus on relevant issues and list other relevant resources in the footnotes. Use secondary sources to hone down to the specific information you need. From there you will be directed to the relevant primary source material (legislation and case law).
Secondary resources include:
Legal dictionaries
Legal encyclopaedias
Legal textbooks - including ebooks
Journal articles
Commentary services
Law reform resources
Reports
LEGAL DICTIONARIES
Legal dictionaries will help you define a term and place it in a legal context. They usually provide a paragraph summary of a term and refer to other related concepts or primary sources.
LEGAL ENCYCLOPEDIAS
Legal encyclopedias summarise aspects of the law, giving you an overview and point to important legislation and cases (primary resources). Remember encyclopedias are generally only a place to start, not to complete your research.
You might use an encyclopedia to find:
Information on a topic you know little about
Some basic principles, relevant cases, legislation and possibly some leads to further research
A succinct statement of the law in a particular area
An overview; rather than in depth treatment of a subject area;
An easy to understand descriptive approach to a legal subject
Coverage of all territotial jurisdictions. This can be very useful for locating legislation across different states
LEGAL TEXTBOOK
Textbooks provide essential background to a topic, contextualise the topic within a broader area of law and identify and examine issues in the law.
Books are an invaluable source of information for legal research. Books can provide you with:
an in-depth understanding of a particular practice area, topic or concept
relevant case references
relevant legislation references
relevant journal references.
Some books are available as both e-books and in print, while others may only be available in one format.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Journals are published quicker than books and can provide depth of analysis and opinion to inform argument. They are often peer reviewed and are written by academics or practitioners with expertise in a particular area of law. Remember journal articles may not always reflect the current law and it is important to check if there have been any updates since the article was published.
Why use law journals?
To provide an overview on the law related to a research area
To focus on a specific or specialised aspect of the law
Current information not yet in textbooks
Summarise recent cases or legislation amendments
Scholarly opinions of experts to back up your argument
To lead to other articles and cases on similar points of law
To discuss proposed changes and law reform areas.
LEGAL COMMENTARY
Legal commentaries, also known as "loose-leaf services", provide up to date, detailed information on a particular subject area such as criminal law, property law, contract law etc. They often provide a mixture of expert commentary, legislation and key cases. Tip: don't forget to check the currency of information provided in commentaries.
LAW REFORM
Law Reform documents are created by Law Reform bodies. These bodies, generally called Law Reform Commissions, are tasked with reviewing, developing and reforming the law. Each state and territory of Australian, except South Australia, has a Law reform body, and their publications are available from their respective websites.
LAW REPORTS
Reports are used by government bodies and organisations to communicate information that has been gathered as a result of research and analysis. They will have a clear purpose and are designed with a specific audience in mind.
Reports that may be useful for legal research can include:
Government reports
Policy statements
Industry body reports
NGO reports
Parliamentary inquiry reports
Royal Commission reports
HOW TO CITE A RESEARCH PAPER (WITH APA FORMAT)
American Psychological Association (APA)
Researchers in social science and psychology fields often use APA citation. The most recent edition of the APA style guide is the 7th edition, released in 2019. While APA uses sentence case when referencing book titles, titles of articles, reports and webpages, it uses title case for magazines and newspaper titles.
Here are the general rules to follow when citing a research paper in an APA style format:
Book: Last Name, First Initial. (Year of Publication). Title of the work. Publisher.
Example: Thompson, S. (1982). The Year of the Wolf. Preston and Buchanan.
Journal: Last Name, First Initial. (Year of Publication). Title of the work. Journal Title, page range.
Example: Baider, L., Uziely, B., & Kaplan De-Nour, A. (1994). Progressive muscle relaxation and guided imagery in cancer patients. General Hospital Psychiatry, 16(5), 340–347. h
Magazine: Last Name, First Initial. (Year, Month of Publication). Article title. Magazine Title, Volume (Issue), page range.
Example: Smith, J. (2005, March). Five kinds of chocolate cake. Cakes Around the World, 23 (5), 5-15.
Newspaper: Last Name, First Initial. (Year, Month Day of Publication). Article title. Newspaper Title, page range.
Example: Johnson, J. (1997, August 22). Sighting of a black bear has town on edge. The Timberland Herald, 5-6.
Website: Last Name, First Initial. (Year, Month and Date of Publication). Article title. URL
Example: Sampson, K. (2011, September 9). The moon and its phases. https://moonphases.com/the-moon-and-its-phases
Video: Author. (Year, Month day). Video title in sentence case, italicized [Video]. Name of Platform. URL
Example: Cosmo, Elizabeth. "Scientist Answers Questions." YouTube, uploaded by Source One, 21 Nov. 2016, www.youtube.com/URL.
How to cite a book in a research paper using APA style citations
After you're done writing your essay, include your references in a works cited, reference or bibliography page at the end of your paper. Here's how to cite a published book using the APA format for both in-text citations and references in your bibliography:
1. Create your in-text citations
Consider creating your in-text citations as you write your paper. When you directly take information from another source and put it in your research paper, it's essential to cite the information using the author-date method. For example, after the sentence where you directly quote or paraphrase from another source, put the author's last name, a comma and the year of the publication in parentheses, followed by a period. Consider the following examples:
Example: "The sighting of the bear had severely disgruntled the residents." (Johnson, 1997).
If there is no publication date in the source you're using, you can put "n.d." which stands for no date in parentheses in place of the year followed by a period. Here's an example:
Example: "The sighting of the bear had severely disgruntled the residents." (Johnson, n.d.).
2. Start with the author's last name and first initial
When you're done writing your paper, begin working on your bibliography. This page includes all of the references you used to write the paper, including any that you cited throughout your research paper. For example, to format a book reference, find the author's full name on the book cover. When creating the reference, use the author's last name, then put a comma and then the first initial of the author followed by a period:
Example: Cordova, V.
If there's more than one author, you can separate them by using a comma and an ampersand before continuing with the second author's name:
Example: Cordova, V., & Lockwood, T.
3. Provide the publishing year of the book
Next, find the publishing year of the book. The publishing year goes inside the parentheses after the author's name, followed by a period:
Example: Cordova, V. (2015).
If the publishing date is missing, you can provide the author's name followed by the letters "n.d." in parentheses followed by a period to let the audience know that there was no date listed in the book. Here is an example:
Example: Cordova, V. (n.d.).
4. Provide the title of the work
Keep in mind that APA uses sentence case when referencing book titles, titles of articles, reports and webpages. Sentence case means you capitalize the first letter of the first word in a title and any proper nouns, but the rest of the title stays in all lowercase letters. This format makes the title look like a sentence. Magazine and newspaper titles use title case, which requires writers to capitalize every first letter of a word that's not a preposition. Here are some examples:
Example of sentence case: The phases of the moon
Example of title case: The Phases of the Moon
After listing the publishing date, locate the title of the source. Since we're using a book reference as the example, keep the title in sentence case with a period at the end. Here's an example:
Example: Cordova, V. (2015). The earth's orbit around the sun.
If the title includes a subtitle, also capitalize the first word after the colon. Here's an example of this:
Example: Our galaxy: The earth's orbit around the sun.
5. Provide the publisher's name
If you’re citing a book, you might find the publisher’s name on the page before the title page at the beginning of the book. If you can’t find publishing information on the book itself, consider looking up the book title online to find the name of the publishing company. Once you find the publisher’s name, add it to your citation, followed by a period:
Example: Cordova, V. (2015). The earth's orbit around the sun. Jackson and Co.
6. Proofread your work
When you’ve finished your research paper, placed your in-text citations and completed your bibliography, go back and proofread your work. Ensure your citations look accurate and follow the format you're using correctly. To improve your paper’s grammar, punctuation and word choice, consider using a grammar check software or asking a friend or colleague to read the paper and give you feedback.
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