Prepare to Practice Resources

Consider the information that has been provided to you and identify relevant legal and factual issues as you create a research question to guide your research.

Some questions you may want to ask yourself to get started are:

• "Journalism" questions - who, what, when, where, why, how
• What's the scope of your research assignment? Does your supervisor want a comprehensive survey or just a few good sources?
• What's the relationship between the parties? For example, is it an employer/employee or employer/independent contractor?

Once you have spotted the issues, you are ready to write a research question that will help guide and focus your research on a clear goal. Don't worry about creating the perfect question, you just want to make sure you create a question that keeps you focused on the core issues and facts you identified in step 1. You may be given a research project that addresses multiple points so you may have to create a separate research question for each point. If this is the case, it may be best to start with a broader question first and then slowly work on the narrower questions. 

When it's time to start thinking about where to start your research, consider what you know about the legal area. If you don't know much, it is likely best for you to begin your research using a secondary source. However, if you have been given a specific citation, such as a statute or a case, it will likely be best to begin your research using that citation rather than a secondary source or looking for other sources.

Remember that each source type, such as cases and statutes, are different so it may be a good idea to come up with effective search techniques for each as what you use for one source type may not work for another. 

You can create effective searches based on "Natural Language" or "Terms & Connectors." Neither option is better than the other, they each have their own unique advantages and disadvantages. 

Remember that there is no such thing as a perfect search. When you search for sources, you are trying to balance the number of relevant sources you can find with the ratio of relevant to irrelevant sources.

Do not forget to evaluate your results so you can adjust your search terms accordingly. You will learn about the law and issues as you go, make sure you adapt your research to account for new information you gain along the way.