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Kirtland

CJS - Criminal Justice: Find Articles

Information to help students complete assignments in criminal justice courses.

Access

You will need to use your Single Sign-On user name and password to access the Library's databases.

Articles: What They Are & How to Find Them

Publications containing articles are referred to as periodicals and come in many forms:

  • scholarly journals
  • trade journals 
  • popular magazines
  • newspapers

Find out more about the different types of periodicals by looking at the Magazine vs. Journals chart from the Austin Community College Library Services department.

Articles provide current information including news, opinions, and research. As a college student, you will not be using magazines like People, Ladies Home Journal, Sports Illustrated, or Vogue. Your instructors expect you to find articles in scholarly journals for your research. 

The best place to find articles is to search the Library's databases. While they contain magazines, journals, and newspapers, some databases may also contain reference books, video files, audio files, and podcasts. The Database Searching guide can help you better understand databases and database searching.

What database will help you find the best articles for this project? Browse Databases by Subject or look at an A-Z list of all databases available through Kirtland's Library.

Searching the Databases off-campus? Use your Single Sign-On username and password to access.

Criminal Justice Databases

Kirtland librarians recommend starting your search with the Criminal Justice & Law databases. This includes CQ Researcher and Criminal Justice (Gale OneFile).

Another useful database: Opposing Viewpoints.

A Tutorial on How to Use Databases

Databases: What Are They & Why Use Them (4:27)

Suggested Search Terms

Try these subjects/terms when searching the Kirtland Catalog, databases, or eBook collections to find information on your topic:

Attorney Courts

Police
Evidence Crime Murder
Burglary White Collar Jim Crowe Laws
Gideon vs. Wainwright Serial Killers Human Trafficking

Database Tips

A few quick tips to help make your database searches more effective:

  • Do not write a question in the search box. Instead, search for a term.
    • Ex:  FBI
    • Ex:  methamphetamine.
  • Put quotation marks around words that you want found together and in that order. 
    • Ex:  "drug abuse" 
    • Ex:  "domestic violence".
  • Use the advanced search option to search for multiple terms at once or to eliminate particular terms. Put your first search term in the first search box. Choose a connector, and put another term in the second search box.
    • Ex:  "mental health" AND "law enforcement"
    • Ex:  firefighters NOT wildfires
    • Ex: "gun violence" OR "active shooter"
  • Notice what type of results you get. You'll probably want to skip letters to the editor and book reviews. Look under Content Types to see if you're looking at results from magazines, academic journals, or newspapers. Don't forget to consider who wrote it and when it was written.

For more about using databases, view the video on this page or click on the "Databases: How to Search Them" link shown below.