SCALEplus Quick Reference
http://scaleplus.law.gov.au
There are two distinct ways of getting information from SCALEplus - browsing works best when you know where you want to go (eg to a section of an Act or a particular case) and searching. Searching can be done from either of the two search windows: SEARCHING QUICK SEARCH: • Enter your search term(s) in the box on the SCALEplus Home Page, and press Search. (nb Search In Name confines search to title of documents). • Databases will then be searched, and a hit list of the first 20 documents containing the search terms will be displayed . • View a retrieved document by clicking on Show FIRST hit, or Show from Start. Click Back to return to the list. ADVANCED SEARCH: • Click Advanced Search for an easy-to-use but sophisticated method of searching SCALEplus. • Term(s) can be entered in the first, second and third boxes and an appropriate connector(s) selected (eg. and or near). • Searches can be limited to Zones via the pull-down menu at the right of the box (see next page for more information). • Date searching can be incorporated. • Results can be sorted in a variety of ways. • When all required search terms have been entered, click Search . BROWSING BROWSING A DATABASE: • Click Browse. • Click a database from the displayed list. • The contents of the database will be displayed. Click on the part which you wish to browse. • At the Chapter level (a year of cases or a piece of legislation), you can list the components of that chapter (cases or sections), search the chapter itself or download it. SELECTING DATABASE(S) FOR SEARCHING: • • • • • At any stage, it is possible to select and search any combination of databases (one, some or all). Click Advanced Search. Click the Database Selection Screen link. Choose from the displayed list of databases by checking in each box, or check a group of databases. You must click on Set to enable searching on your selected list.
PRINTING/DOWNLOADING DATA: • You can print the displayed document (or hit list) at any time by selecting the Print option under the File menu. • Text versions of documents can be downloaded by selecting the Save As option under the File menu on top of screen. Choose format type of Text when the Save Options window appears. • Certain data (eg. a complete Act or Regulation) can be downloaded when browsing a database; from the Browse Database screen, select the Download option displayed under the statute title. More and more of the download data is in RTF (Rich Text Format). HELP: • Help is available at any time by clicking Help . • You can download (and then print) the Help manual (ie. User Manual) from the SCALEplus Home Page. The User Manual has more information. The SCALEplus Help Desk number is (02) 6250 6484.
1 SCALEplus quick reference May 1998
SEARCH’97 query language - quick reference
INTRODUCTION: • This Quick Reference to the SEARCH‟97 language identifies the more common operators and the general rules for executing searches from (ideally) the Advanced Search screen although the syntax can be used in either of the search screens (Quick Search, Advanced Search). LIST OF KEY OPERATORS: Operator
, *, ? (wildcards) Example crime punishment fine penalty (fraud, embezzle) avoidance, evasion murder knife constitutional law name ship piracy ship piracy dang* c?t =, >, < date = 21/9/95 “abduction of children” Comments left and right angle brackets are optional here. the left and right angle brackets are optional here. like , but has enhanced relevance ranking. also like , but is implied. find first term, but not documents containing the second. documents with search term in zone (here, the title). terms occurring in same general area as each other. terms occurring within 10 words of each other. * = stem (danger, dangerous); ? = substitute any letter (cut, cot, collect) field searching - standard Boolean operators apply. double quotes means match exact word or phrase
SOME SAMPLE SEARCHES: national environment protection council class action constitutional law s 51 date > 01/01/1975 (national environment protection council 15) name pure "and" simple manner calculated deceive (date >= 01/01/1995 date <= 31/12/1995) native title name ZONES: Most SCALEplus documents are divided into zones which allow more focussed searching. Zones are shown in the pulldown menu in the Advanced Search screen. Here are the more useful: CASELAW DATABASES (eg HIGHCT, FEDDEC, TASDEC) NAME - Title of case eg Parker name COURT - Composition of Court eg Murphy court CATCHWORDS - Catchwords of cases eg (Crimes Act 14) cwds HEADNOTES - Headnotes of cases (not in all caselaw) eg (murder, manslaughter) hdnt HEARING - Hearing, judgment dates and appearances eg Griffith hrng JUDGE - Individual judgments. eg Black judge? HINTS AND FEATURES • Special characters such as „.‟, „/‟, „$‟, etc. are not indexed. Only characters and numbers are indexed. Spaces should replace special characters in a search (for example, instead of „s. 51 (g)‟ in a search type „s 51 g‟). • Register for the “Notify Me When …” feature to be told automatically by email when new data of interest to you is added to SCALEplus. • Be aware that stemming is applied automatically, (eg. „kill‟ as a search term retrieves „kill‟, „kills‟, „killing‟, „killed‟). If you do not want stemming to apply, enclose the search term in double quotes (eg. “kill”). STATUTE DATABASES (eg PASTEACT, PASTEREG) NAME - Short title of Act eg crimes act 1914 name SECTION (or RULE or REGULATION) - Text of sections, rules or regulations eg treason sect SCHEDULE - Text of any schedules eg geneva convention sched NOTES - Text of the 'Notes' to an Act or a Regulation READER - Text of a Reader's Guide (if present)
2 SCALEplus quick reference May 1998