Researching Secondary Law Resources

Citing Secondary Sources

Primary and Secondary Sources recap

Different resources are useful for reading about different types of information. Legal resources can be divided into two types: primary and secondary. Primary sources are the actual text of the law, that is, legislation and case law, as created by the parliaments and the courts. The referencing of these primary source types (citing cases and citing legislation) was covered earlier in this guide.

Secondary sources are the tools that assist you in locating and understanding the relevant primary sources. Select the secondary sources type (journal articles, books, legal dictionaries, looseleaf services, or legal encyclopaedias) that you need to reference from the left menu under Secondary Sources heading.

Text version