What is a graph?
A graph is a mathematical term for a collection of related objects, called nodes. In a graph, relationships between the nodes are indicated by edges connecting the nodes. Citegraph uses a graph to show citations between cases. Each case is shown in the graph as a node, and a citation from one case to another is shown as an edge.
What do the different colors mean?
The color code represents the citation rate of the case, simply the number of times the case has been cited by the number of days the case has been out and issued. Cases with the greatest citation rate appear red and cases with the lowest citation rate appear blue.
Why are some cases larger than others?
The more connected a case is to others in the graph, the larger it appears. Thus, the more often a case is cited by others in the graph, or the more cases that it cites in the graph, the larger it will be.
Why are some cases closer to each other than others?
Many cases have more than one citation to another case, and the more times one case refers to another, the more closely related two cases are. Citegraph adjusts the length and thickness of the edge between the cases to show this relationship. For example, a case which cites another twice, will be roughly half as far away as one that only cites that case once. If two cases appear very close together in the graph, one likely cites to the other a number of times.
Why does the graph look so crappy?
Try using Firefox.
Working with the graphs
Mouseover. Use the mouse to learn additional information about the cases shown in the graph. When you position the cursor over a node in the graph, a tooltip with the name and citation for the case will be displayed.
Double Click. When you double click a node in the graph, the text from the opinion will be displayed in another window.
Dragging. When you click and drag a node, the graph will reorganize, following the new position of the node. This can be very helpful to rearrange nodes in the graph when things are a little cluttered.
Searching
Citegraph searches return all the cases that contain your search terms. By default, each term in a multiple word search is required to be in the case, so you do not need to include booleans like "and". To search for phrases, put your search in quotes.
This search returns all the cases containing the word "enablement." This search returns all the cases containing both the word "enablement" and the word "utility." The words do not have to appear next to each other, they can be anywhere in the case. This search returns all the cases containing the phrase "written description."