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RESEARCH GUIDES

ENSP 330: Introduction to Environmental law

research guide for ENSP 330

Cases

Search Strategies:

Use the following search strategies to retrieve relevant articles when using Nexis Uni.

Case Citation

  • If you have the citation for a case, simply enter the citation into the search box

Natural Language Searching

  • Truncation: The asterisk (*) searches for a string of characters, no matter how the word ends.

  • Phrase searching: Use quotation marks or hyphens to search for an exact phrase, instead of a single word.

  • Operators:

    • "And": For some topics using "and" between words is the best search strategy. You may end up with a large number of results and some may not be relevant.

    • "/s": limits keywords to the same sentence.

    • "/p": limits keywords to the same paragraph.

    • "hlead": limits keywords to the headline and lead paragraphs

  • Advanced Searching:
  1. Select "Legal" at the top of the screen or under "All content types" on the search box
  2. Select "Cases" OR "Federal" and then "All Federal Cases"
  3. Scroll down and enter your keywords into the boxes for specific sections (opinion, summary, overview) to limit your results.

Too many results? Try:

  • limiting by date
  • adding more words
  • searching within results
Examples:

Using the topic, "Do President Biden’s proclamations restoring Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments exceed his authority under the Antiquities Act?" run the following examples into the database and see how your results change with each search.

  1. "4:22-cv-00059-DN-PK"
    • This searches the case number directly.
  2. Select Legal -> Federal -> All Federal Cases and enter "antiquities act" /p biden into Opinion
    • This search for antiquities act in the same paragraph as Biden in case opinion segments.

Search Strategies:

  • On the hompage, select Cases

  • Enter case citation directly in search box

  • Truncation: The exclamation mark (!) searches for a string of characters, no matter how the word ends.

  • Phrase searching: Use quotation marks or hyphens to search for an exact phrase, instead of a single word.

  • Operators:

    • "And": For some topics using "and" between words is the best search strategy. You may end up with a large number of results and some may not be relevant.

    • "/s": limits keywords to the same sentence.

    • "/p": limits keywords to the same paragraph.

Examples:

Using the topic, "Do President Biden’s proclamations restoring Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments exceed his authority under the Antiquities Act?" run the following examples into the database and see how your results change with each search.

  1. "4:22-cv-00059-DN-PK"
    • This searches the case number directly.
  2.  ("antiquities act" /p ("big ears" or "grand staircase"))
    • This searches for antiquities act in the same paragraph as big ears or grand staircase.

Google Scholar

Search Strategies:

  • Click on Case law (under the search box)
  • Choose Federal or Select Courts
  • You can also choose the court type once in the results list
  • Enter your keywords, use quotation marks for phrases
  • Limit results by date

Example:

Using the topic, "Do President Biden’s proclamations restoring Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments exceed his authority under the Antiquities Act?" run the following example search.

  1. "antiquities act" biden "bears ears" and select Federal Courts

Climate Case Chart is a website run by Columbia University and clearly describes cases and claims. Federal, state, and constitutional claims related to climate are all considered. 

an image of climate cases from the Columbia University Website