CCJS 100: Introduction to Criminal Justice

Research resources compiled and Web page developed by Barbara Lay
Social Sciences and Allied Professions Team, McKeldin Library
Instructor: Dr. Arnett Gaston

The University of Maryland Libraries have many resources that will help with the research assignments in your CCJS 100 class. The following sources are suggestions only. If you require additional information, please talk with a reference librarian at McKeldin Library's Information Desk or contact Barbara Lay, Librarian for Criminology and Criminal Justice. If you have questions about remote access to Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, or any other database from this page, please see Off-Campus Access to Library Resources. Because of licensing agreements, access to bibliographic databases and electronic journals is restricted to UM faculty, staff, and students. These may be accessed from off campus; consult Off-campus Access for further information.

Outline

• Case Briefs
• Finding Books and Periodicals
• Citing Sources

• You can search for the text of the cases in Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe. From the Academic Universe homepage, click on the Legal button at the top of the page. On the left side of the next page, click on federal and state cases. In the drop down menu for select sources, choose U.S. Supreme Court Cases, Lawyers' Edition. In the case name section, type in the name of the case.

• You can search for summaries of supreme court cases in the CQ Supreme Court Collection. Enter the name of the case in the Case Finder box, then click on the name of the case when it appears in the results list to see the summary.

• You can search for the text of the cases in printed form. To find the citations, use the U.S. Supreme Court Digest, Table of Cases, McKeldin Quick Reference KF101.U525.

• Once you have the case citation, you can locate the text of the cases using sets such as United States Reports, Government Documents Reference JU 6.8 or the United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition, McKeldin Periodical Stacks KF101.U533.

• Additional material about the cases can be found in:

• Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. McKeldin Reference KF4548.E53 2000

• Great American Court Cases. McKeldin Reference KF385.A4G68 1999

• Guide to American Law: everyone's legal encyclopedia. McKeldin Stacks KF156.G77 1983

• Historic U.S. Court Cases 1690-1990: an encyclopedia. McKeldin Reference KF385.A4J64 2001

• Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. McKeldin Reference KF8742.A35093 2005

• Supreme Court A to Z: a ready reference encyclopedia. McKeldin Stacks KF8742.A35S8 1998

• United States Supreme Court Decisions: an index to excerpts, reprint and discussions. McKeldin Reference KF101.6.G83 1983

• West's Encyclopedia of American Law. McKeldin Reference KF154.W47 2004

• West's Legal Desk Reference. McKeldin Reference Quick Reference KF387.W492 1991

• Books and periodical articles may help you with your research. To find out what books, government documents, and media are owned by the Libraries, start with the Libraries' Home Page and click on the Catalog. The Catalog includes 16 Maryland campuses, but will default to the College Park campus if you are on campus. To switch campuses, click on the link at the top of the catalog page called "choose campus." If you have questions about the Catalog, this Catalog Guide will help.

• To locate periodical articles on a topic, from the Libraries' Home Page, click on Research Port. Research Port is a gateway to our databases and electronic journals. The databases are listed by subject and name. Some databases that will be useful for CCJS topics include:

Academic Search Premier
Provides abstracts and indexing for over 7,000 journals. Full text of articles for over 4,000 scholarly publications, including more than 3,100 peer-reviewed publications.



Criminal Justice Abstracts
Criminal Justice Abstracts contains indexes and summaries of international journals, books, reports, dissertations and unpublished papers on criminology and related disciplines. Criminal Justice Abstracts covers crime trends, crime prevention and deterrence, juvenile delinquency, juvenile justice, police, courts, punishment and sentencing.



Criminal Justice Periodicals
Full-text coverage for 45 of the titles most frequently accessed by criminal justice researchers, and complete indexing and abstracts for another 140 relevant U.S. and international journals.



NCJRS
Summaries of more than 170,000 publications including journal articles, government reports, books, research reports, and unpublished research plus links to over 1,500 full-text publications

• Citing your sources is an important part of research. For help with the MLA citation format, the Citing Sources Using the MLA Handbook and Citing a Library Subscription Database Using MLA guides may be helpful.

If you require additional information, please talk with a reference librarian at McKeldin Library's Information Desk or contact Barbara Lay, Librarian for Criminology and Criminal Justice.

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