Interdisciplinary Research in Law:   Developing Research Strategies: Searching for supporting theories Dana Neacsu. PhD Ian Beilin, PhD Humanities Research Services Librarian, igb4@columbia.edu

Hypothetical 1: The U.S. Supreme Court decided Jan. 13 it will look at whether a naturalized citizen can lose her citizenship over a white lie (Maslenjak v. United States, U.S., No. 16-309, review granted 1/13/17). Divna Maslenjak fled to the U.S. from Bosnia, claiming that she faced persecution there because her husband had evaded conscription into the Serbian army during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. She was later naturalized. But her husband had, in fact, served in the Serbian militia, and Maslenjak admitted to lying about it during her naturalization process. As a result, Maslenjak was convicted of knowingly procuring her naturalization contrary to law and her citizenship was revoked.But the jury had been told that her lie didn't need to be material to her application for naturalization, and it's not clear that it was—Maslenjak had also based her application on a fear of ethnic persecution. The question presented by her petition is whether a naturalized citizen could be stripped of citizenship for an immaterial false statement, referred to as a "white lie". Is 'white lie" the appropriate synonym for an immaterial false statement?

Macro-management of ILR: Read your question: Assess your research needs; Locate Research Resources (indexes(

More on Macro-management Find the appropriate literature databases More on Macro-management Find the appropriate literature databases. Where do you start? 1. Free of charge? 2. Fee-based? Who publishes them? Where can you access them? What are their research tools?

Answer Library catalogs (clio v. pegasus) Natural language v. Boolean language Specialized databases

Micro-management of ILR Keep track of your results

Hypothetical 2: How can we prove that common law countries surpass civil law countries in financial development? Is there literature connecting the above assumption with the greater adaptability of the judge-made common law?

Macro-management of ILR Read your question carefully Suggestion: Find ‘law and finance’ literature to support statement about the greater adaptability of the judge-made common law. Restructure the Q: e.g., behavioral data on common-law judges law and finance literature?

More on macro-management: What databases. 1. Free of charge. 2 More on macro-management: What databases? 1. Free of charge? 2. Fee-based? Who publishes them? Where can you access them? What are their research tools?

Answer Deeper Web Library Catalogs? Clio More Google searches? Specialized databases? JSTOR “judicial behavior” & “market stability” More Google searches? Proprietary databases? ICPSR Westlaw?

Ian Beilin, igb4@columbia.edu Dana Neacsu, edn13@columbia.edu Questions? Ian Beilin, igb4@columbia.edu Dana Neacsu, edn13@columbia.edu