Skip to Main Content

*Criminal Justice Research Guide*

A research guide devoted to criminal justice and police science.

The Research Process

steps of the research process: Information need, pre-research, research question, search strategy, search, evaluate, and cite.

The Research Process

  1. Information need: What is your assignment asking you to find? 
  2. Pre-research: Choose a topic, learn more about it, narrow it down, find keywords.
  3. Research question: What is your assignment asking you to create?
  4. Search strategy: Where will you look for information?
  5. Search: Start with the main ideas of your topic or research question.
  6. Evaluate every source you find - for credibility and usefulness.
  7. Cite: You have found credible sources and answered your research question!

Getting Started

Information need: Find sources to address the pieces of information you need to include in your paper about your serial killer:

  • Background/history of the case
  • Victimology
  • Killer's background/childhood
  • Modus Operandi
  • What criminological theory of crime causation applies?

Search Tools

Where are you most likely to find the information you need?

Google: Popular sources like news and magazine articles, government sources like FBI.gov, primary sources. Sources may be behind a paywall, including sources from Google Scholar.

Library Databases: Scholarly sources, popular sources like news and magazine articles, reference sources, biographies, primary sources. Full text is available for thousands of database sources.