Criminology and Justice: Assignment Research Example (CRI1103)

Research Process

• Plan your search strategy via the Library Tips on the Starting your Research page
• Refine your ECU Worldsearch and / or database results as per those tips.
• Once you have filtered your results, assess them via the CRAAP test.

Research Preparation

• Make sure you understand what your assignment is assessing (there's no point in writing a critical essay if it is a simple compare and contrast that is requested).

Make sure you understand the specifics of your question, and topics. Check out the resources in the Reference Materials tab above to help tightly define your area. For example, The International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences or Halsbury’s Laws of Australia are great ways to discover your terms:

Search your subject-specific Dictionary / Thesaurus / Encyclopedia for Credible sources and alternative terms.

Read over the entries, and look for keywords.

Use the entries for cross-references.

• Note the Keywords in green, these are specific terms you may wish to include or exclude
• Follow linked articles and bibliographies as well
• Try Brainstorming and Mind-mapping to better understand the connections between your subjects. If "children" are a sub-facet of "domestic," searching for "domestic violence" may get you lots of unnecessary results. In this case, the more specific term may be “intimate partner abuse.”

Note: ECU provides access to a great mind-mapping program called Mindmeister for you to use.

• Make use of the Search Planner on this page to bring your thoughts together, and select subject-specific databases for your topic.

Once you have your topic, you need to look for research and evidence that helps you argue a point.

The trick to researching, is that we often do not know what we're actually looking for, and so the results can be frustrating.

Below is a sample worksheet on breaking a topic down to help you search for sources (link to blank form is below).

The research query here should help us find material on the media response to domestic violence, but not “family violence.” Thus, as a simple search, it should return items such as Violence and American cinema.

• Database Search Planner

Use this planner to assist in developing your search strategy in preparation for database searching.

• Once you have selected your (first) database, perform a scoping search with your keyword terms and synonyms.
• Note: Enter your Alternate Keywords for each aspect of your topic on the same line, separated by "OR"
• Additional concepts are on new lines.

• Remember you can filter your results by Peer review, Publishing date, Suggested Subjects, etc.
• In this case, the Subjects suggested and selected include: News media, Mass media effects, and Social media

Based on the CRAAP test was developed by librarians at CSU Chico.