LibGuides: CCJ4820: Senior Seminar in Criminal Justice: Finding Articles

Using Databases to Find Research Articles

When conducting your literature review, you should try to find as much information about previous research on your topic, as possible.

One of the best places to look for articles is on the Library’s Articles & Databases tab. Databases range from general to subject-specific, can be used from off campus, and many offer full-text access to articles.

If your topic covers more than one subject (Social Sciences and Education, etc.) you'll want to search more than one database to get the full picture.

General Criminal Justice and Sociology Databases

Search All isn't always the best place to go when doing research. In fact, some our our databases actually offer more control over you searching!

The following databases are good starting points for your Criminal Justice research. The contents of each are different (with some overlap) so it's always a good idea to check in multiple databases to ensure that you find all relevant information.

If you topic touches on another subject, such as education, health, or gender studies, be sure to look in those databases as well (see below).

Visit our Databases page for a full list of Criminal Justice Databases.

Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window Large, interdisciplinary full-text database contains over 4,800 full-text publications, including academic journals, magazines, books, and trade publications. Offers broad subject coverage for a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, area studies, biology, chemistry, ethnic and multicultural studies, food science and technology, general science, geography, law, mathematics, music, pharmaceutical sciences, physics, psychology, religion and theology, women's studies, and many other fields. Funded by the the New Jersey State Library.
Criminal Justice Database This link opens in a new window Criminal Justice Database is a comprehensive database supporting research on crime, its causes and impacts, legal and social implications, as well as litigation and crime trends. As well as U.S. and international scholarly journals, it includes correctional and law enforcement trade publications, dissertations, crime reports, crime blogs and other material relevant for researchers or those preparing for careers in criminal justice, law enforcement and related fields. [ 1981 - Present ]
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) is a major source of news, legal, and business information, containing over 15,000 full-text publications. The database provides current local, regional, national and international newspapers, broadcast media transcripts, newswires, and blogs. The legal section offers federal and state statutes, administrative codes, court opinions, briefs, pleadings and motions, administrative materials, law reviews and legal news. The business sections contains information on more than 80 million U.S. and international companies and more than 75 million executives, including company profiles, SEC filings, analyst reports, directories, and more. Nexis Uni also offers several useful personalized features for students and faculty who create individual accounts on the database after logging in, including the ability to customize the home page, save searches for later re-use, create search alerts on topics of interest, bookmark documents for later viewing, and retain search history to identify previously-viewed documents. With a personal account, students and faculty can also collaborate by creating and sharing research folders, sharing search strings, and highlighting or annotating documents in a folder.
ProQuest Social Science Database This link opens in a new window ProQuest Social Science Database, a subset of the ProQuest Central database, offers indexing and full text for hundreds of academic journals, providing extensive coverage across a wide range of social science disciplines including anthropology, criminology, economics, education, political science, psychology, social work, and sociology. Contains full-text content for over 1,200 titles.
Scopus This link opens in a new window Scopus is a comprehensive database providing access to the research literature of the natural and physical sciences and the social sciences. The database currently provides over 50 million citation records and indexes over 20,000 peer-reviewed journals, over 390 trade publications, and over 370 book series. Also included are citations for over 5.5 million conference papers from proceedings and journals, over 25 million patent records from five patent offices, and articles in press from over 3,800 journals. [1823 - Present]
Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Sociological Abstracts, which includes the companion file Social Services Abstracts, covers the international literature of sociology, social work, and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. It provides abstracting and indexing of articles and book reviews drawn from thousands of serials publications, plus books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers, and working papers. [ 1952 - Present ]

Education Databases

If your topic touches on issues of educational equality, or relates to issues present in schools and higher education, you might want to also explore these databases:

Educational Administration Abstracts
Index to articles on topics in educational administration from over 150 periodicals, with links to full-text content where available.
ERIC (via EBSCOhost)
A database of education-related resources compiled and maintained by the U.S. government. A great starting point for research on any educational topic.
ProQuest Education Journals
Covers over 820 titles in education, including over 630 scholarly journals, going back to 1971 for several titles. Full-text access is available for over 650 titles. ProQuest Education Journals covers literature on primary, secondary, and higher education, special education, home schooling, adult education, and hundreds of related topics.

Health-Related Databases

For those of you dealing with issues of healthcare and mental illness, the following databases will be useful:

CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health)
CINAHL is the most comprehensive resource for locating published research in nursing and allied health. The full text version includes content from over 600 journals indexed in the database, with many article backfiles extending to 1981.
PsycARTICLES
A collection of scholarly articles from a variety of psychology-related journals. A smaller database than PsycINFO, but contains more full-text. Search both databases to get the most comprehensive coverage.
PsycINFO
A collection of scholarly and non-scholarly articles from psychology-related journals dating back to 1887! Much larger than PsycARTICLES, it provides wider coverage of the subject. Not all content is scholarly, though, and you will need to limit your results.

Gender-Related Databases

In addition to searching the general sociology databases (above), check out these resources when dealing with issues of gender inequality:

Women's Studies International
Limited user licenses. If you cannot access, please try again later. [1972 - present]
GenderWatch
GenderWatch is a full-text database useful for gender and women's studies, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) research. The database offers over 300 titles, with more than 250 in full-text, from an array of academic, radical, community and independent presses, with coverage back to 1970. Researchers and teachers may access more than 219,000 full articles on wide-ranging topics like sexuality, religion, societal roles, feminism, masculinity, eating disorders, healthcare, and the workplace. [1970 - Present]

Scholarly v. Popular

When conducting research, you will usually be asked to find Scholarly Articles, or artices from a Scholarly Journal, rather than popular sources (like magazines and newspapers).

Not sure what the difference is between scholarly and popular? Check out this short tutorial: Scholarly v. Popular

Is It Scholarly?

How can you tell if you've found a scholarly article?

Some of our databases allow you to limit your results to Scholarly or Peer-Reviewed (possibly Refereed) articles. In some cases, this isn’t so clear. You can either check with your professor or a librarian, or you can search for the journal name in Ulrichsweb (under Articles & Databases, on the Library homepage).

Once you’ve found the name of the journal you’re looking for, look for a small referee’s shirt icon (), to the left of the title. This indicates that there is scholarly (peer-reviewed, refereed…) value to the articles in this title.