Senior Seminar in Theory and Research - CRM 6500 - Jill McCorkel

Background Research

The Library has a large number of subject specific online encyclopedias, companions and handbooks with exhaustive and well-researched entries written by subject experts. These essays are great starting points that can help you to define and focus your topic. Essays generally include bibliographies that will lead you to further sources on your topic.

Reference Works

Literature Reviews

  Annual Review of Sociology

The Annual Review of Sociology, in publication since 1975, covers the significant developments in the field of sociology. Topics covered in the journal include major theoretical and methodological developments as well as current research in the major subfields.

  Sociology Compass

Provides original, peer-reviewed surveys of current research from across the entire discipline of sociology.

  Annual Review of Criminology

The Annual Review of Criminology provides comprehensive reviews of significant developments in the multidisciplinary field of criminology, defined as the study of both the nature of criminal behavior and societal reactions to crime. This journal commenced publication in 2018.

  Oxford Bibliographies - Criminology

Annotated bibliographies of important scholarship on hundreds of topics in criminology. Each bibliography was compiled by a subject matter expert.

Finding Articles

These search engines will help you identify articles on your research topic. Use HeinOnline and Nexis Uni to search for law review articles.
 

Key Databases

These search engines will help you identify articles on your research topic. Enter one search term on each line, then use the filters to limit by date range and to focus on subjects that are relevant to your research question.

  Criminal Justice Abstracts (EBSCO)

Indexes academic journals, magazines, and books in criminology and related fields. Includes abstracts and selected full text. Coverage goes back to the middle of the 18th century.

  Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest)

Indexes the literature of sociology and related fields. Includes citations to journal articles, dissertations, books, conference papers, and magazines. Offers abstracts and selected full text.

  PsycINFO (ProQuest)  Tutorial

Provides abstracts and indexing to journals, books, book chapters, technical reports and dissertations in all areas of psychology. This database is produced by the American Psychological Association (APA). International in scope; coverage is from 1887 to the present.

A tutorial for this resource can be found at: https://www.apa.org/pubs/databases/training/proquest-qrg.pdf

  Google Scholar

Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Scholar search tips

Law Review Articles

Philadelphia Newspapers

Citing Your Sources

Citation and Writing Tools 
A guide by Falvey librarians, with information on citation styles and citation management software.

Zotero.org 
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use citation management tool that must be downloaded to your computer. Go to Zotero.org to sign up for your Zotero account and to download the software and the browser plugin. Click here to download a quick-start guide to Zotero.

ZoteroBib 
ZoteroBib is a free web-based tool for creating quick, on-the-fly bibliographies. Click here to download a quick-start guide to ZoteroBib.