Month: June 2020

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Module 2 : Assessment Tool

Assessment Tool

There are four questions and answers that I would like to review.

  1.   On Lexis Advance, when running a terms and connectors search, you must enclose phrases such as “summary judgment” or “res ipsa loquitur” in quotation marks since spaces between words are interpreted as ORs.
    1. The answer is FALSE.  
    2. However, you would need to use the quotation marks  in Westlaw Edge because spaces between words are interpreted as the word OR in terms and connectors searcheds.
    3. https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/content/dam/ewp-m/documents/legal/en/pdf/quick-reference-guides/tr906479-how-to-search-with-boolean-terms-and-connectors.pdf
  2. The order of the operation is the same for both Westlaw and Lexis Advance.
    1. The answer is TRUE.
    2. The terms and connectors operate in this order:
      1. Parentheses
      2. OR
      3. Proximity Connectors
      4. AND
      5. NOT
  3.  You want to retrieve all documents for a pedestrian who is blind, sightless, or has a vision impairment (impairment of vision, vision is impaired, etc.)
    1. blind! OR sightless OR vision /5 impair! /s pedestrian
    2. Is this search correctly formatted?
    3. NO, not correctly formatted.
    4. This is the correct formatting:
      1. blind! OR sightless OR (vision /5 impair!) /s pedestrian.

  4. You want to retrieve documents about a dog or canine or German Shepherd biting or scratching.

    1. dog OR canine OR “german shepherd” /S bite OR scratch

    2. Is this search correctly formatted?
    3. The answer is NO.
    4. The search is not correctly formatted.  The verbs should be truncated.
    5. This is a the search formatted correctly.
      1. dog OR canine OR “german shepard” /s bit! OR scratch!
    6. bit! would include bit, bite, bites, bitten, biting
    7. scratch! would include scratch, scratching, scratches

Please send let me know if you would like to discuss further.  swise@law.miami.edu

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Module 2 : Forum Discussion : Institute for Historical Review


Institute for Historical Review:

One of the methods of evaluation of the website would be to look at the media articles.   A number of the articles were not what I expected to see on a website that has the term Institute in its title.  I was also did not expect to see that the Executive Director was banned to enter Britain. and that the Yale Daily News dropped an ad from the Institute for Historical Review.

Here is a link to a Reuters article and to the explanation from the Yale Daily News.

1)  Reuters article about banning Mark Weber from Britain  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-politics-holocaust/britain-bans-entry-to-prominent-us-holocaust-denier-idUSKBN1F623Z

2) Explanation from the Yale Daily News about the https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2019/09/24/editors-note-13/

After reading both of these articles, I knew that the website was not to be trusted.

Another technique is to read articles on the website posted by the Institute’s staff.  Mark Weber is the Executive Director of the Institute.  He has written a number of the articles posted on the website.   I took a look at Mr.  Weber’s article on Biden at http://ihr.org/other/biden_jewish_role  The article began as if Mr Weber was going to summarize a speech Biden gave in 2013.  However, Mr. Weber began a sentence stating that  “Biden might also have mentioned……” which gave me pause.  I also noticed that the author cited to his own article without mentioning it in the text of the article.  At that point,  I realized then I needed to know more about the Institute and turned to  Wikipedia for a quick read. After my quick read, I knew again that the Institute for Historical Review’s website was not to be trusted.

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Module 2 : CALI Lessons : Introduction to Search Logic and Strategies : Evaluating Websites

CALI Introduction to Search Logic & Strategies

There are  number of reasons why it is important to learn terms and connectors searching.  One is that it focuses your attention on the search query – you need to think what terms to use for your search, how near they should be to each other, and where you want to see terms in the case, law review article, treatise, etc.

For example, if you want to retrieve documents about a dog or canine or German Shepherd biting or scratching a suspect.

Which is the source more likely to find a case on point?

  1.  dog  AND bite AND suspect
  2. (dog OR canine OR “german shepherd” /S bit! OR scratch!) /P suspect

Think about the first search – you are requiring Westlaw Edge and Lexis Advance to retrieve cases that have the terms Dog, Bite and Suspect to be anywhere in the case.  Dog could be on page one, Bite on page 25, and Suspect on page 30.  The cases you are looking for may not be at the top of the results list.

And the second search – you are requiring Dog, Canine or “German Shepard” to be in the same sentence as Bite or Biting or Bitten or Scratch and that sentence to be in  the same paragraph as Suspect.  Much more promising.

You still may need to adjust your search to find the best cases but you definitely will be further along with the second search.

And, remember that you also have the ability to filter the results and to search within the search.

And, of course, before your search,  you need to decide what resources you are going to use.

Remember that searching is an process.  It is an iterative process. You may want to keep  notes on which searches worked and which did not. And, keep notes on filtering, etc.

For the Research Guide, you must provide the search(es) that return the best results.  Best search(es) for best results.

You also need to consider the type of materials you are searching.  Your search queries for cases may be different that your search queries for law review articles since the terms the author use and the placement with in the materials may be different.  And you may decide for statutes that you will use a natural language search rather than a terms and connectors search since statutes are written very differently than cases.

The searches that most of us use for “Google”  or “Bing” or any  other  search engine rarely will suffice in a complex, legal database.

CALI Evaluating Websites

Additional information on Domain Names:

.org started out for non-profit organizations but now it is used for both non-profit and for-profit entities.  Entities using .org is very diverse, including cultural institutions, associations, sports teams, religious, and civic organizations, open-source software projects, schools, environmental initiatives, social, and fraternal organizations, health organizations, legal services, as well as clubs, and community-volunteer groups. Some cities also use .org.

.com started out for commercial entities but it now it is used for general purposes, including state agencies.  For  example, https://www.freshfromflorida.com/ is the URL for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

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Module 2 : Evaluating Authority Exercise

Hello,

Here is the results from the  Evaluating Authority Exercise. 

The results are also available on the tab on TWEN titled Blog which is located beneath CALI LessonLinks.

Here were the instructions for the Evaluating Authority Exercise:

Please rank the resources based on their RELATIVE AUTHORITY. 

[Note: You are not ranking them based on when you would use them in the research process but rather on their strength as an authoritative resource.]

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The Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution is the most authoritative.  It is ranked # 1.  All 13 class participants ranked the Commerce Clause as the most authoritative resource on the list.

The next source with the next highest number of points (11) and thus ranked by the class as the second most authoritative resource was a federal trial case with citations to the Federal Supplement and the Florida Law Weekly.

There was a tie for the classes’ third most authoritative source at 5 points each.  Both American Jurisprudence 2nd and the Rotunda and Nowak, Treatise on Constitutional Law, Substance and Procedure received 5 points each.

The fourth most authoritative resource according to the class with 5 points was Florida Jurisprudence 2d.

The fifth most authoritative resource according to the class was another tie with 3 points each.  The tie was between the Bittker and Denning treatise titled Bittker on Regulation of Interstate and Foreign Commerce and Bradford’s Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly article.

The sixth most authoritative resource according to the class with 5 points was the Bittker and Denning treatise also ranked number five (above) in a tie.

The seventh most authoritative resource according to the class was Dan Coenen’s Iowa Law Review article with 4 points.

The eighth most authoritative resource according to the class was Bradford’s Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly article with 5 points.

The ninth most authoritative resource according to the class was Mitchell’s Tulane Environmental Law Journal article with 5 points.

The tenth most authoritative resource according to the class was Coenen’s Turning Point study aid with 3 points.

The eleventh most authoritative resource according to the class was Linda Greenhouse’s article in the New York Times with 5 points.

The  twelfth most authoritative resource according to the class was an United States Supreme Court case available on QuizLaw with 5 points.

The least authoritative resource from this list according to the class was the United States Supreme Court case available on QuizLaw with 4 points.

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Discussion:

You, I am sure have noticed that there was unanimity in the first choice which was a given and 11 our of 13 agreed on the second ranked authoritative resource, the federal district court case with a citation to the Federal Supplement. 

After that, the highest number of agreement was 6 out of 13.

There was also some unanimity at the bottom with both Wikipedia and QuizLaw receiving very low authoritative rankings.

Neither American Jurisprudence 2d nor Florida Jurisprudence 2d should have ranked  highly as authoritative sources.  They are great research tools usually used early in the research process but not they are not authoritative sources.

Also, Coenen’s title Constitutional: The Commerce Clause is a title in the study aid Turning Point Series.  It is certainly useful but it is not an authoritative source.  One would not want to cite it to a court, include in a law firm memo, etc.

The treatises written by Nowak and Rotunda and  Bittker and Denning are definitely authoritative resources.  Nowak, Rotunda, and Bittker are all very respected.  Denning collaborated with Bittker and then published the second edition as the sole author and is also respected.  However, the most critical part of the equation is the content of the treatise.  Is it on point for the legal issue being considered?

The law review articles written by Mank and Coenen, can also be authoritative.  How “authoritative” may depend upon how well known the authors are and the publisher of the law reviews.  However, the article itself, again, is the most critical piece of the equation.  Is it on point for the legal issue being considered?

Mitchell wrote a Note in the Tulane Environmental Law Journal.  The designation Note indicates that the author is a law student.  A student author may not be considered as authoritative as a lawyer or a professor.  However, the article itself is the most critical piece of the equation.  Is it on point for the legal issue being considered?

One of the items was an article in the NYT by Linda Greenhouse.  She was the United States Supreme Court reporter for the NYT for years.   She is very well respected. But a NYT’s article is not usually considered an authoritative piece that one would cite to a court, etc.  However, if the article brings out important points that are not available in more authoritative resource,  then citing it might make sense.

Please let me know your comments and questions.

Bye.