Criminology

Photo Credit. Justice, Statute, Lady Justice, Greek Mythology. CCO Public Domain https://pixabay.com/en/justice-statue-lady-justice-2060093/

These databases index thousands of journal articles and may also link to the full text.

In addition to books you will be expected to access and read research that has been published in academic journals. Academic journals are similar to popular magazines, in that they bring out new issues at regular intervals, and each issue will have a number of articles written by researchers about their work. There are thousands of academic journals and most specialize in a particular academic subject.

The articles in academic journal can be referred to as 'academic journal articles', 'peer-reviewed articles', or just 'journal articles'. Such an article will normally include the following information:

• author and title of the article
• an abstract or brief summary of the main points and any conclusions
• A list of references at the end. This is where the author will list all the different information sources they have used (in much the same way as you will include a list of references you have used in your assignments).

What is Peer-Reviewed?

Academic journals are important when doing any academic research because they are 'Peer-Reviewed'. This is a system of quality control where articles are assessed and approved by independent experts in the same academic field before they are published. The benefits of such a process are:

• only the highest quality research is published
• you can be assured of the credibility of the research - you know that the article has been written by an expert in the field, and it has been reviewed by other respected experts

In any particular academic subject area there may be many different academic journals published worldwide. In order for you to be able to discover exactly what has been written in your topic or area different subject databases have been commercially produced, and Sheffield Hallam University subscribes to some of the top databases for your area. A database provides a searchable index to the research articles that have been published. In many cases you can also find links to the full text of the articles. A list of the available databases - with direct links to them,  are given on this page.

(Text courtesy of  Leeds Beckett Law Subject Guide at http://libguides.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/subject_support/law)

To explore an area in more detail, you will need to read journals. Journals and periodicals contain articles and are published at regular intervals. Journals are very good for keeping up to date with the latest news and research or for information about a very specific subject.

If we don't have a journal article or conference proceeding in stock, we can ask another library to email a copy to you via our Document Supply Service. While it may not be possible to get absolutely everything, the vast majority of articles can be obtained this way.