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Criminal Justice

This resource is intended to guide your research in Criminal Justice courses. It will help you identify resources and strategies for topics within Criminal Justice.

Forensics


Forensics, or forensic science, is the application of science to detect and solve crimes. Researchers interested in forensics are concerned with the accuracy and application forensic methods. The following resources can help you narrow your topic, learn about the language used to describe topics, and get you up to speed on the major advancements in this field.

Forensics Databases


Research in forensics utilizes core Criminal Justice resources. You may find it helpful to search the following databases for your research.

Forensics Subject Headings


You may find it helpful to take advantage of predefined subjects or subject headings in Shapiro Databases. These subjects are applied to articles and books by expert catalogers to help you find materials on your topic. The format of subject headings varies by resource.

Consider using databases to perform subject searches, or incorporating words from applicable subjects into your keyword searches. Here are some addiction subjects to consider:

  • Forensic sciences
  • Forensic psychiatry
  • Autopsy
  • Forensic medicine
  • Forensic Anthropology
  • Forensic pathology
  • DNA
  • Fingerprinting

Forensics Example Search


Not sure what you want to research exactly, but want to get a feel for the resources available? Try the following search in any of the databases listed above:


"forensic science" AND [add keywords of interest here]


Forensic science is a very established way to talk about this topic, so start your search there and add keywords to limit results to your area of interest.

We can use boolean operators to tell the database how to search for our keywords. We use parenthesis to organize our search, and can also use other additional advanced techniques as needed. Where one idea is described with multiple words (forensic science) we enclose the words in quotation marks. This is called phrase searching and tells the database that these words are only relevant when they appear together and in that order.