Broadcast Regulation and Control of Media BRC 319 Course Materials Fall 2007
	Rules and Regs Abstract Manual a beginner's guide to legal research
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Abstract Manual - Page 2

For each abstract you will need to cite at least several primary sources and enough secondary sources for a full topical discussion. Though this may not seem like much compared to the number of sources you might cite for a full 20 page research paper, you should remember that in order to fully understand the topics you choose (and write about them in a cogent manner), you may have to do considerably more research than you list in the actual abstract.

When most people think of finding aids and indexes, they think of some of the different READER'S GUIDES. Though they may be useful to you in supplying some broad information on a particular topic, usually the Reader's Guide indexes general interest magazines like Time and Newsweek. Unfortunately, these popular or mass consumption magazines will not provide enough depth and information about a topic to be useful as a secondary source.

There are, however, other indexes and databases which are very useful for your work. The following indexes are much more suited to the kinds of issues that you will be dealing with In Rules and Regs. Listed in order they are:

• ABI/INFORM, 1985 to date. This index lists articles in over 100 journals including Broadcasting and Cable, older Television-Radio Age, and Advertising Age. ABI/INFORM is available online.
• HUMANITIES ABSTRACTS, formerly part of Social Science and Humanities Index. This source indexes over 250 journals such as the Journal of Communication. Additionally, the Communication Abstracts contain excellent secondary source perspectives on many of these issues. Journals differ from magazines because they are written for scholars as oppose to the general readership.
• INFOTRACK OneFile This index is an excellent starting point for general periodicals and bibliographic references
• WEST LAW, which as the name implies, indexes the many journals and cases concerning law.
• LEXUS/NEXUS ACADEMIC. This is an invaluable source for very current articles concerning many of the topics which have been assigned. Lexis provides law resources as well as court cases and material.
• NATIONAL NEWSPAPERS. Major newspaper articles are available in this resource. Frequently major daily newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Christain Science Monitor will publish extended pieces about major technologies and regulatory issues of the day. These are valuable sources to check.

Law review articles are excellent secondary (not primary) sources. Many law review articles are available in on-line versions . You will find a link to them on the Rules and Regs Subdirectory. The TELCOM LINKS page on my web site provides a comprehensive list of Web based resources to assist you, but if you need an older law review article that is not on-line you may have to request the article through Interlibrary Loan or you may use the Oswego County Courthouse law library for such research. May sure you make you request material in sufficient time to complete your abstract by the date due.

In reading about a topic in your secondary sources, you may come across legal citations to primary works which will need to be consulted. Legal citations may appear to be confusing at first. However once you understand what is included in the citation, you will find them easy to use. For example, if a citation is for a Supreme Court Decisions case you may see the following:

New York Times v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 91 S.Ct. 2140, 29 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971)

or the same citation may appear as:

New York Times (U. S. v ------ ), 403 U.S. 713, 91 S.Ct. 2140, 29 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971)

What is given here are three separate places to find the New York Times case. These are called parallel citations and you need only look at any one of the three to find the case.

Broken down these citations become:

If you need to find out the name of the journal for the abbreviations listed consult the list of abbreviations in the back of BLACK'S LEGAL DICTIONARY which is located in the law stacks. Now you could locate the actual case and read the different opinions of the Supreme Court Justices. For an in depth explanation of legal citations, chapter one of Mass Media Law will be very helpful. All current changes to the law will eventually be reprinted in the CFR title 47 which is located in Penfield Library. Regardless, current changes in laws and regulations can be found in the Federal Register online or bound in Penfield. You will need to learn how to utilize one of these finding systems. In the case of The U.S. Code or other statutory volumes, you may find them listed as citations to section numbers (e.g. U.S.C. ss326) or paragraph numbers (e.g. RR 71.22). A sign is usually, though not always, given for paragraphs and sections so extra care must be taken when trying to locate these references.

I urge you to look at two web sites for additional information. Cleveland State's Electronic Law Resources has an excellent site linking different resources and search tools available on the Internet. For additional information on the legal system try out The Legal Information Institute at Cornell. This site provides short explanations about the law. Yahoo's bestowed a pair of cool glasses on the site for their excellent work. .

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