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Legal Classics

An extensive collection featuring thousands of works from some of the greatest legal minds in history.

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Search Bar Tips

The search bar is stationary throughout HeinOnline. After entering the Legal Classics database, the search bar will search only within this database, unless the Search All Databases box is ticked. Click Advanced Search for custom drop-downs to perform a more specific search. Click Search Help for a quick reference guide of commonly used search syntax.

Using the Search Bar

Search for resources pertaining to a topic using the search bar.

  • For example, enter the phrase “constitutional law” inside quotation marks into the search bar.
  • Select where you want to search for this phrase: as an Author, appearing in the Title of any document or article, as a Citation, or in our Catalog as a title. Want to see your search in any of these fields, or appearing in the full text of a document? Select Just search for.
  • Results can be refined using the facets on the left side of the page. Available facets include Date, Document Type, Section Type, Location, Title, Organization, Person, State Published, MARC Subject, and Subjects.
  • Terms matching the search query appear in bold text within the matching text page snippets.
  • Sort search results by relevance, volume date, or document title.
  • Save to your MyHein account, email a result, display download options, or download a PDF using the icons on the right side of each search result.
  • Use the icons next to the sort-by bar to modify your current search, to search within results, to toggle all matching text pages, or to turn OFF infinite scroll.

About Venn Diagram Search

Located within the Advanced Search tool is the Venn Diagram Search feature. Use the tool to visualize the results yield of various keywords and better refine a search. After selecting the tool, users will be redirected to a page with a search bar, instructions for its use, and a few example searches. With the Venn Diagram feature, users can simply search for multiple terms separated with the Boolean operator "AND."

For example, perform a search using the terms "founding fathers" "constitution" and "freedom of speech". Enter each term into the search bar, separating each with the word "AND." Click the Search button to bring up a Venn Diagram illustrating the various combinations of those terms and their respective results yield within the Legal Classics. The original search combining all three terms ("founding fathers" AND constitution AND "freedom of speech") will appear by default, visually represented by the red intersection of all three circles in the diagram.

Users can also view the results of other combinations. Select the "Clear" button above the diagram to be able to hover over the various options. Users will see that all possible search term combinations are highlighted as the cursor hovers over them. Click one of these highlighted circles or intersections to bring up the results of certain combinations.

For example, to view only the results of the terms "constitution" and "founding fathers" select "Clear" and then hover over the intersection between the two terms to see it highlighted in red. Select the red intersection to bring up the results of the search "founding fathers AND constitution" in the Legal Classics.