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Glossary of basic database terms.
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A field is an area on a form designed to contain specific pieces of bibliographic information, such as author names, titles, reporters.
A form is used to display the content of particular records. There are different forms for different types of sourceworks. Each form has fields for the particular type of sourcework.
A record in your datafile is like a page or a notecard, containing all the pieces of information (fields) on a particular sourcework. Records in the datafile are displayed on the screen using a Form.
This is the file that contains all the records in a single bibliographic database.
Searching in LegalCitation is basically the same as searching for terms in a document with your word processor, except that you will have the option of being more specific. You can search for terms in a particular field, for instance, or in the entire record. You could browse through all the records by a certain author, or cases that were decided in a particular jurisdiction, or that contain a term only in the keyword field or title field. Or, if you prefer, you could browse through the records that contain a term anywhere in the record.
Selection is a process for extracting a subset of records that match certain criteria. You can select of subset of records, for instance, for Treasury Regulations that deal with certain issues, or decisions that deal with conservation easements. Any of the above “Searches” can be done as a Select - which means you actually create a subset of your database containing only those records that match the criteria.
Sorting is basically “ordering” records or citations by the contents of a particular field. You could sort all the cases in your datafile, for instance, chronologically (this would be a sort on the Year field), or by the primary keyword (this would be a sort on the Keyword field; records or citations would be sorted by the first term in the keyword field.
The publishing style is the set of rules used by LegalCitation to structure the citation. Standard publishing styles are predefined, and compiled with the program. Custom format styles are editable, and can be changed to have your citations conform to local court rules.
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