Seminar Topical Research Guides

Choosing a Paper Topic Research Guide
This research guide from the Ross-Blakley Law Library is designed for students who are writing a substantive legal research paper and are looking for guidance on how to begin. The guide details sources for help in selecting a paper topic and offers insight in how to check whether your paper will add new information to the field of law.

Conducting a Preemption Check Research Guide
This research guide details the recommended steps for conducting a preemption check, as well as provides information on and links to a variety of resources for conducting a thorough check.

ASU has a number of online and print treatises on the legal issues of reproduction. You can search for them in the ASU catalog by using subject headings such as: Human reproductive technology-- moral and ethical aspects, Human reproductive technology—government policy, Medical laws and legislation, and Family policy. You can limit your results to e-books by clicking “Full Text Online” on the right. Print books available in other ASU libraries may be requested and delivered to you at the law library.

ASU subscribes to many interdisciplinary databases that contain content related to reproduction, reproductive technologies, and the law.  Below is a select list of databases, you can search for additional resources through the following database subject lists: Health Sciences and Women, Gender, and Sexuality. All of the databases listed below can be accessed on campus, ore remotely with ASURITE credentials.

Contemporary Women’s Issues
Contains the full-text of domestic and international journal articles, newsletters, and research reports dealing with women’s issues.  Coverage is from 1992 to the present.

Google Scholar  
Allows searching of multidisciplinary scholarly literature including articles, papers, books, abstracts, and technical reports from a wide variety of resources.

Medline (ProQuest)
The premier bibliography in biomedicine and life sciences, compiled by The National Library of Medicine.

PudMed Central
The U.S. National Library of Medicine's digital archive of life sciences journal literature. It provides a full-text collection of biomedical, medicine, health, biotechnology related online journals.

Science Direct
ScienceDirect is an index to journal articles and book chapters from more than 2,500 peer-reviewed journals and more than 11,000 books on scientific, medical, and technical topics.

Women’s Studies International
Indexes international journals and books dealing with political, social, and cultural women’s issues.   Coverage is from 1972 to the present.

Reproductive Rights Prof Blog
Part of the Law Professor Blogs Network, this blog is edited by a law professor at CUNY School of Law.

Family Law Prof Blog
Part of the Law Professor Blogs Network, this blog is edited by a law professor at Indiana University School of Law.

Womenstake
Womenstake is the blog of the National Women's Law Center.  It provides news and information on women’s health issues including reproductive rights.

Westlaw Family Law Page (Westlaw password required)
This Westlaw page provides a convenient location for searching and browsing a variety of primary and secondary sources specific to family law including cases, statutes, regulations, forms, and proposed legislation and regulations.

Lexis Family Law Page (Lexis password required)
This Lexis Family Law Page provides access to a variety of materials specific to family law issues, organized by topic, including adoption, custody, paternity, and surrogacy.