Guide for Users

Guide for Users (Readers)

Guide to the Encyclopedia of Law

The Encyclopedia of Law is a complete source of information within the covers of a single unified work. It is a leading reference work, which address a full range of topics in the field of law and legal matters, with coverage of thousands of issues related to law, including international law, comparative law, American law, European law, Asian law, African law and other areas. It also includes many topics of concern to theory of law, history of law and philosophy of law.

International in scope, the Encyclopedia of Law may be the first place to turn to for authoritative information on every area of the legal field — and for answers to literally thousands of questions about legal concepts, methods, theories, history and emerging areas of interest. A combination of several entries cover major legal subjects in depth, and more than 1.000 biographies constitute a mini-encyclopedia in itself.

The Encyclopedia consists of more than one hundreds portals and includes thousands of separate full-length entries, most of them prepared especially for this publication. It includes not only entries on the leading theories and concepts of law, but also a vast selection of entries on applied legal topics and of interest for practitioners of law and its clients. Most of the entries provide a detailed overview of the selected topic to inform a broad spectrum of readers, from research law professionals to law students to the interested general public.

In order that you, the reader, will derive maximum benefit from your use of the Encyclopedia of Law and their portals, we have provided this Guide. It explains how the work is organized and how the information within it can be located.

Organization of the Encyclopedia

The Encyclopedia of Law is organized to provide the maximum ease of use for its readers.
All of the articles are arranged in a single alphabetical sequence by title. So that they can be easily located. The entry titles sometimes begin with the key word or phrase indicating the topic, with any descriptive terms following.

For example, ‘‘Civil Law History ” is the article title rather than ‘‘History of Civil Law” because the specific phrase “civil law” is the key term rather than the more general term “history”.

Introductory Guides

Among the features of the legal encyclopedia that assist the readers in creating connections among concepts, and drawing out narrower subtopics, together with the thorough
indexes (see below), there are a set of more than 100 “Introductory Guides,” which
groups encyclopedia entries into larger categories.

Table of Contents

A complete alphabetical table of contents for any Portal of the Encyclopedia of Law appears at any subdomain of the set, and in many areas and legal topics (following its name by the keyword “contents”). The list includes not only the entries that appear in that particular portal but also a reference to those in the other portal, through an index of contents.

The list of entry titles represents topics that have been, initially, carefully selected by the Project team, in collaboration with the members of the Editorial Board. Other entries were proposed by the authors and the readers of the Encyclopedia.

In addition to the alphabetical table of contents, the Encyclopedia also a table of contents in each entry, and most entries provide a listing of all the entries related to the subject area.

Outline

The intention of the Project team is that each important entry in the Encyclopedia begins with an Outline that indicates the general content of the entry. This outline serves at least two functions:

  • First, it provides a brief preview of the entry, so that the user can get a sense of what is contained there without having to leaf through all the entry.
  • Second, it highlights important subtopics that are discussed within the entry. For example, an entry about property law may include among its subtopics a common law approach and a civil law system approach.

The Outline is intended as an overview and thus it lists only the major headings of the entry. In addition, extensive second-level and third-level headings will be found within the entry.

Definitions

The “Definitions” section within the entries, when provided, contains terms (with a cross-reference to the Legal Dictionary):

  • that are important to an understanding of the entry and that may be unfamiliar to the user, or
  • that may need clarification as to their specific use in the entry.

The same term may appear as a definition in two or more entries. The Encyclopedia includes more than 10,000 definitions.

In addition, the text of many entries in the Encyclopedia begins with a defining statement that provides a meaning of the legal issue under discussion. Often, the defining statement (or, in other cases, a full abstract) summarizes the content of the entry.

Cross-References

The Encyclopedia has been extensively cross-referenced in order to help the reader. Almost all of the entries in the legal Encyclopedia have hyper-linked cross-references to other entries, directing users to additional articles in the reference work on related topics. These linked cross-references often appear after the body of the entry, in the “See Also” section, following the conclusion of the text. They indicate related entries that can be consulted for further information on the same subject, or for other information on a related subject. The legal Encyclopedia contains more than 300.000 cross-references in all.

Further Reading

The Bibliography, often included in the “Further Reading” section, lists secondary sources to aid the reader in locating more detailed or technical legal information, and case law. Some Law Review articles and legal research papers that are important to an understanding of the entry are also listed.

The bibliographies in this legal Encyclopedia are for the benefit of the user, to provide references for further reading or research on the given topic. Thus they typically consist of a limited number of references. They are not intended to represent a complete listing of all the materials consulted by the contributor in preparing the entry.

Index

The Subject Index in the Legal Index of the Encyclopedia contains more than 100,000 entries. The entries indicate, through a hyper-link, where information on this topic will be found. The Legal Index serves, along with other resources, like the classification, the alphabetical Table of Contents and some topic indexes, as the starting point for information on a subject of interest.

The Legal Index is highly detailed and contains many hyperlinks which act as cross-entries. This legal index is devoted to a comprehensive index of legal key terms, allowing the users of the Encyclopedia to reap maximum benefit from this comprehensive reference work.

In addition, readers will find many cross-references throughout the text to specific entries where additional or related information can be found.

A guide to the index can be found at the Legal Index Portal.

Resources

The Encyclopedia of Law gives information about the Encyclopedia project in the about subdomain. It also features link to the Resources Portal, Tools Portal and other material.

Rounding out the tools for readers is a glossary, a quotes Portal and a resources section that lists several prominent law websites, a timeline of major events in the field of law and, in other subdomains, separate Portals that describe classical and modern books, documents and other works on law, along another Portal for law journals.

Conclusion

This reference work is a great addition to academic and public collections serving law students, legal researchers, law professionals and the general public.

The Encyclopedia of Law tries to be outstanding in its timeliness, its usability, and the conceptual and organizational way the online resource brings to light and makes connections between the legal subjects. It also tries to be a useful work for readers who want to delve deeper into the subject of law, and who want a comprehensive all-in-one starting place.

Important Note

The authors, reviewers, and editors of the Encyclopedia have made extensive efforts to ensure that the information provided is accurate and conform to the standards accepted at the time of publication. However, constant changes in information resulting from continuing legal developments and research, reasonable differences in opinions among authorities, unique aspects of individual legal situations, and the possibility of human error in preparing such an extensive text require that the reader exercise individual judgment when making a legal decision and, if necessary, consult and compare information from other sources.

About the Author/s and Reviewer/s

Author: international

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