When searching for resources on Criminal Justice, Crime, Criminal Justice Administration, or Law, the language used in scholarly resources, government documents, and public discourse. There are many times where we will use one term while the literature will use another term. For example:
A person incarcerated in a prison or jail can be called: Prisoner; Delinquent; Inmate; Deviant; Criminal; Offender; or Incarcerated person
All of these terms have slightly different meanings but often used interchangeable with one another. When searching with specific terms, be aware of the different synonyms that resources may be using. Here are additional resources on language here:
Literature reviews are a genre of writing that you can find at the beginning of a scholarly journal article and as a standalone piece of work. Reviews summarize, analyze, and synthesize existing research on a topic often pointing out gaps in the literature or future directions for research.
How can I conduct my own literature review? Start by identifying your research question and building your search strategy. Large comprehensive indexes are a great place to systematically search a lot of sources at once. We recommend OneSearch or Scopus as multidisciplinary resources to start followed by narrower discipline specific databases.
