Secondary Sources

AuthorBeau Steenken, Tina M. Brooks
Pages142-165
142
Chapter 6
Secondary Sources
If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the
shoulders of giants. Sir Isaac Newton
6.1 Learning Objectives for This Chapter
In working through this chapter, students should strive to be able to:
Describe various types of secondary sources.
Assess when to use a general secondary source vs. an in-depth,
topical secondary source.
Find an appropriate secondary source for any discrete legal issue.
Use secondary sources in print or online to research a specific
legal issue.
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6.2 Overview of Legal Secondary Sources
This text has so far discussed primary legal authorities and the methods for
locating them. Now we turn our attention to secondary authorities, also
called secondary sources, which are the sources researchers often use to
begin their research. Legal secondary sources are texts that provide
commentary and analysis of the law for the benefit of the reader. Secondary
sources come in a variety of forms; they can be general or detailed, cover a
specific jurisdiction, and they are written for a wide range of audiences.
Different secondary sources may be employed at different stages of the
research process; the choice of secondary source may also rest on the
researcher’s prior knowledge of the topic. This chapter will describe the
most common types of secondary sources the researcher is likely to
encounter, when they should (and should not) be used, and a variety of
methods for locating them.
6.2.1 Common Types of Secondary Sources
Law students and aspiring legal researches will likely encounter a broad
range of secondary sources. In the following sections, we briefly describe
some of the common types of secondary sources used by legal researchers.
Figure 6.2.1 provides a quick-glance summary of the strengths and
weaknesses of each type of secondary source described.

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