Overview

 
How do you find just the information you need? 

Given that the Internet continues to grow at a phenomenal rate, a major problem has become how to find relevant information when there are hundreds of millions of web pages located on hundreds of thousands of servers around the world. The initial reaction to the Web as an information resource can be overwhelming, much like the first experience of walking into a large library and seeing row after row of books. As libraries moved from card catalogs to electronic catalogs to searchable article databases, finding resources became much easier. 

The Internet has been considered a major research source only for a few years; thus ways to search it are still in their infancy. It's not enough just just to search Google. In this section we will cover the major Internet search engines (portals), how to query them, tools (e.g., bots) that can query a number of search engines simultaneously, where to search for scholarly articles and specific criminal justice resources, specialty search tools that can be used to locate everything from out of print books to computer parts, and how to submit your newly constructed web pages for inclusion on search engines so they will rank highly on searches by others. By the end of this chapter you should be able in a few simple steps to exhaustively search the Internet for any criminal justice information that is available.

Attitudes toward the overall value of materials found on the Web vary. Some are wary because anyone can post a Web site, whether they can back up their ideas with facts or not. Some faculty have not allowed students to use the Web for research for that reason. Much of the scholarly material is in repository databases (e.g., Lexus Nexus) which must be themselves searched. In addition, all materials on the Web can be used effectively if they are judged by the same standards as other research; e.g., is the author a known authority; does the page have a bibliography and/or hyperlinks to support its claims; are the statements plausible; do they agree or disagree with what you have read elsewhere, etc. Knowing the differences between “sensational,” “popular,” “substantive news/general interest,” and “scholarly” publications helps too, as all of these types of information are available. Becoming a discriminating Web researcher is a must. 

1. Which Are the Major Internet Search Engines?

The Internet contains hundreds of millions of Web pages and continues to grow rapidly. There may one day be as many Web pages as there are phone numbers.  Information you might need might not be available on a Web page; it could be buried within resources not easily located such as online databases, newsgroup messages, or FTP sites. Finally, material referenced on the Web may be available only offline; books, journals, old newspaper articles, and some government reports and data fall into this category.  

Search engines were developed in the mid-1990s to help Web surfers locate information. These included Yahoo, Lycos, AltaVista, and Excite. Later these sites started to refer to themselves as Web portals, offering direct links to services such as travel, maps, browser-based email, shopping, etc.  Most major engines have links to several hundred million Web pages in their databases. Google claims the largest collection, over 3 billion Web pages as of 6/2003. However, few contain even twenty percent of the total pages currently available over the Web. It is essential to remember that search engines don't really search the Internet to find the materials you want, just their own databases.

Yahoo is actually a hierarchically arranged index; its a good place to start looking for categorizable things, but bad for conceptual searches. 

The problem with using any of these engines is that search replies may be in the thousands, with only a few "hits" truly relevant to what you want to find. Much time can be wasted looking at irrelevant search results and going from search engine to search engine to see if they offer different Web pages.

By understanding how these databases are constructed, how sites are indexed, how best to query them, and how they report their findings, you can maximize your chances of finding what you want. All search engines allow Web page creators to submit their sites for inclusion. Yahoo is one of the few that actually has reviewers look at submissions, and declines to add sites they deem useless. Yahoo began as a hierarchical index. You can either drill down through the appropriate categories and subcategories until you find a list of what you want, or enter key words that will reveal where that subcategory is in Yahoo's hierarchy. For example, if I wanted to find criminal justice programs in Florida I could start at Education, go to Higher Education, then to Colleges and Universities, then By Region, then United States, then Florida, then go to the Web sites of the 90 listed Florida colleges and universities. This would take a long time. To speed things up try entering "criminal justice programs Florida" in Yahoo's search box. Currently, the result is one hit (Florida State University School of Criminology and Criminal Justice) under the Yahoo category:

Regional > U.S. States > Florida > Cities > Tallahassee > Education > College and University > Public > Florida State University > Departments and Programs

Thus, on Yahoo there are two options; spend hours looking for what you want or search quickly and get little you can use. None of the other criminal justice programs in Florida, beside FSU, can be found quickly on Yahoo.

Almost all search engines, except Yahoo, scan the Web continuously to find new pages to add to their collections. Once a spider--a robot search and index tool--finds a Web server, it looks for all the HTML pages within it, pulls back the information it wants about each page, and adds this information to the search engine's own index. The actual pages do not reside within the search engine's database. 

The key to finding what you want using a search engine is the query tool. Typically this is an on-line form into which you type key words and check off menu choices, e.g. "search for all words" v. "search for words as a phrase." 

Some search tools support the use of Boolean logic, a standard in traditional library informational databases. If a Web search engine uses Boolean logic, it supports use of the logic operators, OR, AND and NOT. If the user enters none of these operators, Boolean systems will use AND as the default in evaluating queries. Below is a detailed description of how Boolean operators work.

Even if you understand Boolean logic, this may not help much, because search engines may not support it. Most search sites incorporate their own proprietary query languages. Alta Vista used a cryptic system of plus and minus signs, but recently added "dynamic categorization," a thesaurus-like feature that helps to narrow searches considerably. Yahoo would search for the words "and" and "or" if you inserted them in a search string, resulting in thousands of additional useless hits. Northern Light supports three search formats: Boolean, natural language searching, and simple words. To use natural language searching--Ask Jeeves does this as well-- try typing a question such as "Who is the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court?" into the search bar. Unfortunately, when I did I was returned 85,000 hits, but none of the top ones mentioned Rehnquist. Simple words searching proved more fruitful. By entering the following:

into the search box I did get to sites that contained the correct answer. In this case, the more words you enter, the more on-target your results will be. 

Search output also varies from one search tool to another. Some search engines, such as Excite, rank their findings on a scale of 1 to 100. However, knowing how these rankings are created on the fly during queries is essential. As part of the indexing process, a spider has added key information about each retrieved page to the search engine's database. Some focus on all the text on a Web page and therefore can count the number of times the key word(s) you entered for searching appeared in the document. Others focus on metatags (key words the page author can add), only the words in the first paragraph on the page, or the page's title. Some search engines weigh these factors together to create hybrid ranking schemes. Teoma adds in a relevancy factor based upon past searches. The result is confusion for many users, both searchers and Web page creators who hope others will find their pages. We'll come back to this topic later when discussing how to get your Web site a higher ranking within a search engine.

Needless to say, the results can be quite frustrating. When I enter my own name on search engines, "Cecil Greek Naked" shows up on some as the most highly ranked Cecil Greek page of the several thousand pages I've created or maintain. The page has my name in the title and once in the text. 

Below is what happened when I used Northern Light for such a search. Note that only one of the top four hits is for one of my pages, the rest are pages that mention me. Not good!

Northern Light's Power Search Query Form.
Such forms are on some search engines, but you have to drill down to get to them.

• Profile filtering is the most straightforward approach. You describe your interests (by picking from a list or entering keywords) and the software rejects anything that doesn't match. ZDNet's Personal News Service uses this approach. Many other news sites have similar features. In the intranet space, CompassWare's InfoMagnet maintains profiles for an entire company and applies them against information from many different sources.
• Collaborative filtering (also called "social filtering") compares your likes and dislikes to those of other people to predict your preferences. Firefly Network's Firefly tools, Net Perceptions' GroupLens, and LikeMinds' Preference Server are three examples already in use on various Internet sites.
• Psychographic filtering is similar to collaborative filtering, except that it predicts your likes and dislikes based on a "psychographic profile" derived from a questionnaire. The Affinicast Interaction Manager is a leading example of this approach.
• Adaptive filtering learns as it goes along, by asking you to "rate" things or by monitoring your clickstream to watch what you do. For instance, the search service Excite has a News Tracker service that asks you to check the stories you liked and then hit a "learn" button to fine tune your preferences. Wisewire.com uses a similar method, combining it with collaborative filtering as well.

WebFerret
http://www.ferretsoft.com/

BullsEye
http://www.intelliseek.com/

Drowning in Infoglut? Intelligent Filters to the Rescue! (Sort of...)
http://www4.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_1035.html

Alexa
http://www.alexa.com/

Intelligent Software Agents
http://www.cs.umbc.edu/agents/

BotSpot Search Bots
http://www.botspot.com/BOTSPOT/Windows/Search_Bots/

CollegeBot
http://www.collegenet.com/cbot/index_html

SurfSaver
http://www.surfsaver.com/

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3. What if the Materials Needed Are Highly Specialized or Covered in Scholarly Literature?

A number of criminal justice topics are so specific that there may be very little scholarly information available over the openly available and search-engine-indexed Web, and a search of articles in journals and databases is required. Faculty members often get emails asking about information that in all likelihood is nowhere on the Web itself, but might be locatable by searching the right database for articles or statistics that have appeared in scholarly journals or other trustworthy sources such as government generated research or reports.

As the Web contains all types of materials It is essential to recognize the differences between (1) “sensational,” (2) “popular,” (3) “substantive news/general interest,” and (4) “scholarly” publications, and equally important, where best to search on the Internet for each type. Criminological and criminal justice topics will be covered in all types of literature, as reading about true crime is a popular activity and a staple of journalism and Hollywood television and film portrayals. 

Below is a guide for identifying a scholarly journal article, even if is found by a general Web search:

Identify Scholarly Journals and Articles in Criminology by Steve Cooper There are many distinguishing factors and some happen to be observable at a glance. However, the following are characteristics of scholarly journal articles that may not be so evident: Articles appearing in a scholarly journal usually are based upon recent research and present scientific findings. A theoretical basis exists for the article (i.e., the authors are testing, exploring, critiquing or advancing a theory). Articles appearing in scholarly journals are usually peer-reviewed. This means that a group of experts in the field have reviewed the articles, made comments and suggestions, and have accepted the papers for publication. Anyone may submit a manuscript for publication consideration. Observable characteristics that may assist you in identifying scholarly journals and articles include, but are not limited to: The cover may have a list of the articles appearing in that volume. The title often includes the word "Journal". (NOTE: this journal, "Criminology" has a subtitle, as do many journals. Its subtitle is "An Interdisciplinary Journal). A Volume, Number and Date are usually listed because journals are continuous publications unlike books. Additional characteristics that are observable include: On the inside of the cover you may find the names of the editor(s), associate editor(s), and the editorial advisory board member(s). The editors and board members are usually affiliated with research universities. As far as the actual articles are concerned, you  may notice that: Most articles will have an abstract. (An abstract is a clear and concise description of the methodology, purpose and findings of the work). Sections included in many articles include: Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion/Conclusion. An extensive list of references and/or footnotes are usually present.   Tables and charts that present data are typically found in many journal articles. Pictures are rarely found in scholarly journal articles.

In comparison to scholarly publications, substantive news or general interest publications are often heavily illustrated, generally with photographs. These sometimes cite sources, though more often do not. Scholars may be quoted or research referred to, but it's unlikely a full bibliographic citation will be used. Articles may be written by a scholar, but might also be contributed by a member of the editorial staff or a free lance writer. The writing style and language of these publications is geared to educated readers but presumes they are not experts in the special topic areas discussed. Examples would include The New York Times, National Geographic, and Police Chief Magazine.

How Do You Cite Wikipedia on a History Paper? At Middlebury College, You Don't. A Professor Explains Why By BROCK READ   This spring, students in history courses at Middlebury College will find a new disclaimer on syllabi warning them that, while Wikipedia is fine for some background research, it is not to be used as a primary source. Members of the Vermont institution's history department voted unanimously in January to adopt the statement, which bans students from citing the open-source encyclopedia in essays and examinations. "Whereas Wikipedia is extraordinarily convenient and, for some general purposes, extremely useful, it nonetheless suffers inevitably from inaccuracies deriving in large measure from its unique manner of compilation," the statement reads. "Students are responsible for the accuracy of information they provide, and they cannot point to Wikipedia or any similar source that may appear in the future to escape the consequences of errors." The problem with Wikipedia, in many scholars' eyes, is its open editing system. The site permits unregistered, anonymous users to edit content alongside more respected contributors. While several studies and informal surveys have found that Wikipedia is nearly as accurate as many hard-bound encyclopedias, professors often say the Web site's freewheeling nature makes it too easy for errors to be introduced. Many professors across the country have already taken it upon themselves to post similar caveats on their syllabi or course Web sites. But few academic departments have managed to agree on all-purpose policy statements like Middlebury's. The Chronicle spoke with Don J. Wyatt, the chairman of the history department, about what the new policy means for students and what it augurs for Wikipedia. When did the history department decide it needed to codify an official policy against citing Wikipedia? A. We'd been deliberating on Wikipedia for almost half a year, but what really tipped the balance was the fact that we found there were multiple instances of students citing Wikipedia for the same misinformation. Wikipedia is very seductive: We all are sort of enamored of the convenience and speed of the Web. From the standpoint of access, it's a marvelous thing. But from the standpoint of maintaining quality, it's much less so. What is the department's stance on students' using Wikipedia as an entry point or as a way of finding other, more appropriate sources for citation? A. We're on record as actually encouraging it for that purpose. To be honest, the original impetus behind our decision arose as an outcry from professors who wanted to preclude or prohibit students from using Wikipedia altogether. I personally resisted that. ... I believe that most educational decisions should be directed toward extending access and rights rather than restricting them. It seems as if it would be difficult to push students off the site altogether. A. The real goal was to arrive at a policy that we could enforce. We decided that we didn't want to ban students from using a particular resource; we wanted them to be able to use it with greater discrimination and more discretion. I was also hesitant about fostering a kind of "open season" in which students were seeking to test such a ban by increasingly violating it ... and I felt no compulsion to nurture such behavior by imposing a ban that was not enforceable from the outset. Supporters of Wikipedia -- including the site's founder, Jimmy Wales -- often say Wikipedia should not be used as a primary source, but they add that other encyclopedias should not be cited either. In your department's view, is citing Wikipedia analogous to citing Encyclopaedia Britannica? A. I think Wikipedia is a different beast largely because it is open-edited. That's not to say that students shouldn't be exposed to inaccurate views, but they should be instructed in making proper discriminations between what is accurate and what is inaccurate. I guess this calls to mind what Plato said in The Republic when he referred to democracy as "full of variety and disorder." Can you envision the department softening its stance on Wikipedia at any point down the road? A. That's certainly not out of the question. In the end, our decision as one institution may have little impact. But if other institutions and departments within academe begin to take collective stands, that could have a very salutary effect in moving Wikipedia to impose a higher level of standards for the articles it has. ... Collective action, as opposed to action undertaken by individuals, is the better way. Do you and your colleagues in the history department use Wikipedia often? A. Actually, many of us use it quite a bit. I happen to personally like Wikipedia, so this is not a personal stance or a hostile one. Wikipedia is a wonderful innovation, but it has its limits. Our job as educators is to make students aware of those limits, as well as the advantages. What is it about Wikipedia that keeps professors coming back? A. The most valuable resources contained in most Wikipedia entries are the usually extensive and up-to-date bibliographies -- which direct you to the products of peer review. ... There's nothing that ensures that a peer-reviewed source will be accurate in any kind of sacrosanct way, but the odds are better. When you're doing research, you definitely have to play the odds.

As criminologists, we recognize that even high quality news publications have difficulty discussing criminological research and criminological models. The box below discusses why this is the norm.

THE PROBLEMS RELATED TO TRYING TO COMMUNICATE CRIMINOLOGY THROUGH THE MEDIA Is it possible to adequately communicate the complexity of criminological concepts, research, and theory through the media? Can traditional media formats such as papers and news magazines clearly reflect criminological concerns or will they distort the message? In addition to criminologists, a number of other social scientists have discussed these issues and most have expressed dissatisfaction with the majority of media coverage of social science. As Weiss and Singer have documented: "When reporters move social science from the domain of the disciplines into the domain of news, they strip it of certain features, such as complex statistics, and recast it in terms compatible with the norms and procedures of journalism." They provide a "news peg," a handle to hang the story on, and cast it into a narrative form that corresponds with the modes in which news is written. As a result, media coverage of social science research is not just a shortened and simplified version of an academic product. "It is a different creation, crafted by different professionals according to different norms to serve a different purpose."  Language becomes a key issue here, opening up the possibility of misinterpretation. For example, given that social scientists use terms such as "significant," "consistent," or "power" in ways that journalists assume the general public will not understand, journalists feel compelled to translate such terms into everyday speech. Statistics create another problem. When journalists misinterpret statistical data they usually err in the direction of "overinterpretation." According to Cohn, "The reason for this professional bias is self-evident; you usually can't write a snappy lead upholding the negative," i.e., that the viewing of pornographic materials has by itself little impact on behavior. Furthermore, when a study merely suggests that something might be the case reporters sometimes present the results in a more black and white style. Finally, the fact that a study may be preliminary is on occasions omitted. In the worst case scenario, the reporter knows what story he or she wants to write in advance and uses social scientists and their research simply to support a preconceived idea. As social scientists have acquired prestige as knowledge experts in our society, journalists sometimes seek to use them to enhance their own credibility. McLaughlin believes broadcast journalists are more likely than print journalists to have a preconceived story-line while print journalists more frequently allow a story angle to develop out of the facts, because broadcast journalists have less time to work on individual stories. For More See: Becoming a Media Criminologist http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimemedia/lecture12.html What Makes Crime News? http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimemedia/lecture2.html Using the Internet as a Newsmaking Criminology Tool http://www.fsu.edu/~crimdo/asc-sd.htm

 

Popular periodicals are often slick and attractive in appearance with lots of graphics. Such publications rarely, if ever, cite sources. Information published in such journals is often second or third hand, and the original source is sometimes obscure or unstated. Articles are usually very short, written in simple language and are designed to meet a minimal education level. There is generally little depth to the content of these articles. The main purpose of popular periodicals is to entertain the reader, to sell products (their own or their advertisers), and/or to promote a viewpoint. Coverage of crime stories is featured in some of these, but typically without in-depth reporting. Examples of popular periodicals include TIME, Readers Digest, and Sports Illustrated.

Sensational periodicals come in a variety of styles, but often use a newspaper format. Within journalism, sensational writing is often referred to as "tabloid." The language of such publications is elementary and occasionally inflammatory or sensational. They assume a gullible audience.

Tabloid Journalism Would Not Let Go of This Story!

The main purpose of sensational magazines seems to be to arouse emotions and curiosity, plus cater to popular superstitions. They often do so with flashy headlines designed to astonish (e.g. O J Simpson's Father Had Martian Blood!). Lurid criminal justice stories are often featured, fitting very closely to the model developed by Jack Katz in his essay "What Makes Crime News?" Examples include The National Examiner and Star. Established newspapers have found they have had to become both more colorful (USA Today style) and more tabloid in their approach to news story selection.

A long established subgenre of this type of literature is the police detective magazine. These pseudo-forensics magazines feature lurid covers--often of bound and gagged women--and titillating writing. Examples include True Police Cases, Detective Files, and Headquarters Detective. In the post-feminist era some of the covers now feature women brandishing weapons instead of as victims.

A broad Web search on a specific criminal justice topic is likely to net some examples from all of the above categories, plus a new one, the personal opinion Web page. The Web allows anyone to post anything they want to say; eventually this stuff ends up in the search engines. Good examples are the "disgruntled with the criminal justice system" pages, in which those who have had bad experiences with the police or court system share their often unverifiable stories. The similarity here is to those who appear on television talk shows telling tales that are never checked for accuracy by the shows' producers. During the 1980s, this practice allowed stories of Satanic abuse at day care centers to spread from a small group of delusional individuals into a nationwide hysteria that mandated criminal justice system responses. 

Sorting out scholarly, from journalistic, popular, or personal opinion sites likely to be found from a search engine query takes time and effort, even for those with considerable skills in this area. The latter three are going to predominate in any search, with scholarly articles least likely to be found.

Specific searches from sites that index scholarly journals are required for serious literature reviews, student term papers, and factual reports. In addition, search sites that only index on-line newspapers and magazines are available, if that type of literature is needed specifically by the researcher. For example, one might want to compare how the media covers death penalty-related issues to what scholars have to say. By using only these two types of search tools, academic users can eliminate having to sift through the rest of the stuff the Web offers.

There are a number of sites that offer access to an index of scholarly journal articles; some offer abstracts. Many charge for article retrieval. Major sites include Ingenta (formerly Carl UnCoverWeb) and JStor. Below is is a sample Ingenta search result.

Many Articles Are Available Only Through Library Subscriptions

JStor offers access to all back issues of selected journals. For example, they have every issue of the American Journal of Sociology from 1894 to 1994. PubList allows users to search from its list of 150,000 journals by keyword; then provides information on how to contact the journal, whether they have a Website, etc. Unfortunately, they list only two criminology journals. 

While many of these sites allow you to search for articles for free and read abstracts, some charge for letting you access the full text of the articles, plus copyright fees. Rather than paying $10.00 or more per article to retrieve them, students can use the bibliographic information to go to the library and pull the journal from the shelves. Many library subscribed databases allow full text versions of articles to be downloaded instantly. If the library doesn't subscribe to the journal and has an online form for periodical article requests, you can copy and paste the information from your search findings into the form. If the library will Fax the articles to your computer, you never have to leave home!

A few search tools, like Northern Light and Lexis-Nexis, offer simultaneous search of both scholarly articles and journalistic materials. Lexis-Nexis is best known for its specialization in legal resources such as case decisions, law review articles, and legislation, but also offers comprehensive news services on a subscription basis on the following topics: business, finance, and economics; markets and industry; fact finding; general news; government and politics; people; and scientific, technical and medical information.

eLibrary is an excellent resource for more popular or journalistic resources. Their database search combines magazines, books, newspapers, pictures, maps, and radio/TV transcripts.

Note that this search found 6 magazine and 23 newspaper articles, plus one transcript.

The above sites can assist in searching for previously published journalistic materials. In order to track current news stories one needs to build an online, updateable newspaper/magazine page or set up a news bot service. Crayon assists you in building a customized newspaper choosing from the specific sections of thousands of online newspapers and other media sources. As these newspaper sections are updated daily, your personal Crayon newspaper continues to provide up to date news.

News bots can help you be selective by searching the websites of newspapers, magazines, and e-zines to find new articles that are of specific interest to you. News clipping services such as Excite News Tracker (a "clipping service" that included over 300 newspapers) return stories based upon user provided key words. While I was preparing a course on transnational crimes, I requested that all stories on drug trafficking, arms trafficking, computer crimes, terrorism, child pornography, etc., be tracked. Students were asked to do the same as part of the course.

Most major newspapers offer their own clipping services, but these are quickly moving to fee-based. For example the New York Times, in 2003, offered 10 ongoing searches for $20 per year.

Ongoing Internet discussions in Usenet Newsgroups can be tracked, too. For example, at Google Groups, a user can track any discussion thread(s) going on in the 20,000 plus newsgroups available. Forum One offers access to over 300,000 Web discussion forums. If you can wade the through the rantings and ravings that seem to make up a significant percentage of any non-moderated discussion board, useful information can be obtained, particularly on more technical subjects.

There are a number of other useful sites for those doing academic research and writing. These include on-line dictionaries, thesauri, quotations, style manuals (APA, MLA, etc.), and calculators. 

While most of the databases and resources discussed here are available for free use, some charge for access. If you are enrolled student at a university or college, you can access a number of the databases for free through your library's Web site. Most universities offer Lexis-Nexis, JStor, and many others to students and faculty. Some offer hundreds of databases, as scholarly information has migrated from paper to digital format more and more. Tutorials, like the one prepared by Gary Kleck below, on how to use these most efficiently, can help students become more productive searchers. 

Additional Resources:

Scholarly and Non-Scholarly Periodicals
http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/skill20.html

How to Evaluate a Web Site
http://www.llrx.com/features/webeval.htm

Evaluating Internet Research
http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm

Geraldo Rivera's Influence on the Satanic Ritual Abuse
and Recovered Memory Hoaxes
http://www.religioustolerance.org/geraldo.htm

Ingenta
http://www.ingenta.com/

Genamics Journal Seek
http://genamics.com/journals/index.htm

INFOMINE
http://lib-www.ucr.edu/

JSTOR
http://www.jstor.org/

Library of Congress
http://lcweb.loc.gov/

PubList
http://www.publist.com/

Lexis-Nexis
http://www.lexis-nexis.com/

Electric Library
http://ask.elibrary.com

CRAYON Daily News
http://crayon.net/

News Bots
http://www.botspot.com/BOTSPOT/Windows/Tracking_Bots/News_Bots/index.html

News Clipping Services
http://www.journalismnet.com/choose/clippings.htm

Google Groups
http://groups.google.com/

Forum One Web Discussion Forums
http://www.ForumOne.com/

LibrarySpot
http://www.libraryspot.com/

iTools
http://www.itools.com/

Web of On-line Dictionaries
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/diction.html

OneLook Dictionaries
http://www.onelook.com/

Roget's Internet Thesaurus
http://www.thesaurus.com/

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/bartlett/

Writing Guides and Style Manuals
http://www.calstatela.edu/library/styleman.htm

The Elements of Style
http://www.bartleby.com/141/index.html

Calculators On-Line
http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/RefCalculators.html

 

ONLINE RESOURCES Using Online Electronic Databases at FSU to Locate Articles and Books Relevant to a Literature Review Topic Area by Gary Kleck http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/book/fsudatabases.doc   FSU Libraries Search Page http://www.fsu.edu/library/search/index.shtml   FSU Online Databases http://www.fsu.edu/library/search/databases/index.shtml FSU Library Criminology Toolkit http://www.fsu.edu/library/search/toolkits/criminol.shtml   FSU / ILL Periodicals Request Form http://www.fsu.edu/library/forms/index.shtml FSU / ILL Renewal Form http://www.fsu.edu/library/forms/index.shtml FSU / ILL Book Request Form http://www.fsu.edu/library/forms/index.shtml FSU Library Instruction http://www.fsu.edu/library/explore/instruct/ FSU CBT Campus (software training) http://cbt.fsu.edu/

 

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 4. Where can I specifically find criminal justice materials?

While many of the above databases can provide scholarly criminological research, there are still more locations one can check for criminal justice information. Where best to look depends upon what type of information you are seeking; scholarly articles and conference papers, government reports and funded research, crime statistics, international crime trends, or more personal information such as arrest records or correctional inmate data. The latter has created considerable debate among those who want easy Internet access to all public records and privacy advocates who want such records made unavailable to ordinary citizens.

In the previous section, scholarly article databases were discussed. There are specific index and abstract databases for the social sciences, but few dedicated to criminology or criminal justice. Social science listings include: PsychInfo, Psychcrawler, Wilson Social Sciences Abstracts Full Text, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, and ERIC. ERIC offers educational research, and is a good source to search for juvenile justice-related materials such as at-risk students. Medline offers access to medical journals. Some of these databases will require entry through a university library portal. 

Criminal Justice Abstracts is the most comprehensive database available within our discipline, but can be accessed online only through a library that subscribes to it. Criminal Justice Abstracts provides citations, with abstracts, to the world's literature in criminology, including trends, crime prevention and deterrence, juvenile delinquency, juvenile justice, police, courts, punishment, and sentencing. Sources include comprehensive coverage of international journals, books, reports, dissertations, and unpublished papers on criminology and related disciplines. It is the best one stop shopping for criminology students.

Also very useful is the NCJRS Abstract Database, and its free! The National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts Database contains summaries of more than 160,000 criminal justice publications, including federal, state, and local government reports, books, research monographs, journal articles, and unpublished research such as the American Society of Criminology and Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences conference papers. Many of the items in the database are directly linked to a full text copies of the materials. If not, NCJRS will mail you a copy of the documents or send items via interlibrary loan. Strangely, while the subject terms used in this database are all listed in the National Criminal Justice Thesaurus, a 300+ page reference tool listing more than 6,000 keywords, this document is not available online, only in print.

Crime statistics and other agency reports may or may not be in the NCJRS database. Below is a tutorial on specifically how to locate crime statistics.

For criminal justice researchers and students who need data to analyze for research methods and stats classes, the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data serves as the final resting place for data sets resulting from funded research projects. Unfortunately, the data sets, code books, and other materials are not organized in a user friendly way. Expert knowledge on how to import the data sets into SPSS or SAS is required. However, the archive's maintainer, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, has a summer program to provide training. According to ICPSR, the Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research offers a comprehensive, integrated program of studies in research design, statistics, data analysis, and social methodology. Basic methodological and technical training is offered, along with opportunities for advanced work in specialized areas. 

For more user friendly data, pay a visit to the National Consortium on Violence Research site. Besides UCR and NVS data, NCOVR maintains supplemental homicide reports, city-level aggravated assault data, and hospital reports.  

International and comparative data is more difficult to find but available. The United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute maintains an exhaustive library on the prevention and control of criminality and deviance as well as related social problems, such as drug abuse, maladjustment, etc. The library collection includes some 6000 authors, as well as more than 300 series and 600 publishers.

An effort in index government reports, plus journalistic and Web resources on international topics was set up as the World Justice Information Network, directed by Sergey Chapkey. According to its mission statement, WJIN was planned an Internet-based system for sharing open source information on crime, justice and the rule of law among policy makers, executives, criminal justice and law enforcement officials, international organizations, researchers and other academics, students, civic activists, journalists and concerned citizens worldwide. They also offered a news story clipping service featuring international crime and criminal justice topics.

Courts Turn to Wikipedia, but Selectively   By NOAM COHEN Published: January 29, 2007 When a court-appointed special master last year rejected the claim of an Alabama couple that their daughter had suffered seizures after a vaccination, she explained her decision in part by referring to material from articles in Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia.   Wikipedia entries are being cited by judges in their legal rulings. The reaction from the court above her, the United States Court of Federal Claims, was direct: the materials “culled from the Internet do not — at least on their face — meet” standards of reliability. The court reversed her decision. Oddly, to cite the “pervasive, and for our purposes, disturbing series of disclaimers” concerning the site’s accuracy, the same Court of Federal Claims relied on an article called “Researching With Wikipedia” found — where else? — on Wikipedia. (The family has reached a settlement, their lawyer said.) A simple search of published court decisions shows that Wikipedia is frequently cited by judges around the country, involving serious issues and the bizarre — such as a 2005 tax case before the Tennessee Court of Appeals concerning the definition of “beverage” that involved hundreds of thousands of dollars, and, just this week, a case in Federal District Court in Florida that involved the term “booty music” as played during a wet T-shirt contest. More than 100 judicial rulings have relied on Wikipedia, beginning in 2004, including 13 from circuit courts of appeal, one step below the Supreme Court. (The Supreme Court thus far has never cited Wikipedia.) “Wikipedia is a terrific resource,” said Judge Richard A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago. “Partly because it so convenient, it often has been updated recently and is very accurate.” But, he added: “It wouldn’t be right to use it in a critical issue. If the safety of a product is at issue, you wouldn’t look it up in Wikipedia.” Judge Posner recently cited a Wikipedia article on Andrew Golota, whom he called the “world’s most colorful boxer,” about a drug case involving the fighter’s former trainer, a tangent with no connection to the issues before his court. He did so despite his own experience with Wikipedia, which included an erroneous mention of Ann Coulter, a conservative lightning rod, as being a former clerk of his. “I have never met Ann Coulter,” he said, but added that he was heartened that the friend who spotted the error could fix it then and there. That friend was Cass R. Sunstein, currently a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. “I love Wikipedia, but I don’t think it is yet time to cite it in judicial decisions,” he said, adding that “it doesn’t have quality control” He said he feared that “if judges use Wikipedia you might introduce opportunistic editing” to create articles that could influence the outcome of cases. He added, however, that he could not fault a use like Judge Posner’s, which “seems too innocuous for a basis of criticism.” Many citations by judges, often in footnotes, are like Judge Posner’s, beside the main judicial point, appear intended to show how hip and contemporary the judge is, reflecting Professor Sunstein’s suspicion, “that law clerks are using Wikipedia a great deal.” The Supreme Court of Iowa cites Wikipedia to explain that “jungle juice” is “the name given to a mix of liquor that is usually served for the sole purpose of becoming intoxicated.” In the Florida case, the court noted that booty music has “a slightly higher dance tempo and occasional sexually explicit lyrical content.” As opposed to these tangential references, Wikipedia has also been used for more significant facts. Such cases include a Brooklyn surrogate court’s definition of the Jewish marriage ceremony and the Iowa Court of Appeals’ declaration that French is the official language of the Republic of Guinea. In 2004, the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Georgia, referred to a Wikipedia entry of the Department of Homeland Security’s threat levels in a ruling concerning magnetometer searches of antiwar protesters. In a recent letter to The New York Law Journal, Kenneth H. Ryesky, a tax lawyer who teaches at Queens College and Yeshiva University, took exception to the practice, writing that “citation of an inherently unstable source such as Wikipedia can undermine the foundation not only of the judicial opinion in which Wikipedia is cited, but of the future briefs and judicial opinions which in turn use that judicial opinion as authority.” Recognizing that concern, Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School who frequently writes about technology, said that he favored a system that captures in time online sources like Wikipedia, so that a reader sees the same material that the writer saw. He said he used www.webcitation.org for the online citations in his amicus brief to the Supreme Court in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios v. Grokster Ltd., which “makes the particular reference a stable reference, and something someone can evaluate.” Wikipedia is increasingly becoming the default reference for the curious. According to comScore Media Metrix, there were more than 38 million unique visitors to Wikipedia sites in December in the United States, making it the 13th most popular destination. Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University Law School, saw this as crucial: “The most critical fact is public acceptance, including the litigants,” he said. “A judge should not use Wikipedia when the public is not prepared to accept it as authority.” For now, Professor Gillers said, Wikipedia is best used for “soft facts” that are not central to the reasoning of a decision. All of which leads to the question, if a fact isn’t central to a judge’s ruling, why include it? “Because you want your opinion to be readable,” said Professor Gillers. “You want to apply context. Judges will try to set the stage. There are background facts. You don’t have to include them. They are not determinitive. But they help the reader appreciate the context.” He added, “The higher the court the more you want to do it. Why do judges cite Shakespeare or Kafka?”

People are now looking to the Web for personal information about other people that has never been easily available--unless you hired a private detective--and was, in some cases, "protected." There appears to be a great deal of interest in using search tools to run criminal background checks. As of yet this service is not being made available by state agencies to private citizens. But, given that in some states like Florida where such information is subject to Sunshine laws and available as public records, it is only a matter of time before enterprising entrepreneurs set up Web sites and start charging for access. Services such as Net Detective promise to provide this kind of information.

Both court and correctional records databases are moving to the Web, but not without some controversy. The practical difficulty of getting at court and corrections documents kept the question a nonissue until the Internet changed access availability. The law has always recognized that court documents were public, and theoretically they were, but the practical difficulty of reviewing those documents kept them effectively private. Forcing citizens to come to the courthouse and then charging outrageous copying fees deterred most. Technology now makes those documents 'in fact' public and instantly accessible. How citizens will use this information only time will tell. Potential employers, rental agents, and creditors would certainly want this data. I often tell my students they can use the local county clerk's database to screen potential dates as all misdemeanor and felony convictions dating back to 1984 are listed there. Some states are blocking commercial use of the information and/or making finding information so difficult most can't get to what they want. 

Many states already maintain searchable online databases of convicted sexual predators and sexual offenders, as public access to these was mandated as part of legislation such as Megan's Law. Actually, the law did not require online access to the records, but states decided to do it. These databases contain current addresses and photos of convicted offenders. In 1999, a group of Oregon convicted sex offenders sued to block the opening of that state's registry. The Florida Department of Corrections offers online databases that include all inmates and those under probation or parole supervision.

Debates pitting individual privacy rights v. access to public government records are certain to continue. The United States holds a position somewhat in the middle compared to Canada and the UK. Canada offers it citizens greater privacy protections, while the UK has long held that its citizens do not have the right to access government collected information. Release of government held information is the only way to fully disclose certain illegal or unethical state actions. For example, sites that help citizens obtain FBI files and other government records under the Freedom of Information Act have appeared. 

Of course, FOIA information could be misused, just like any of these type records. The FOIA law includes a privacy provision and a personal privacy exemption to release of government records. This exemption involves a balancing of the public's interest in disclosure against the degree of invasion of privacy that would result from disclosure. If a request involves this exemption, the requester must provide a brief explanation of the public benefits from disclosure, and how that disclosure sheds light on government activities, so that it can be determined whether any invasion of privacy resulting from disclosure would be "clearly unwarranted."

Additional Resources:

PsychInfo
http://www.ovid.com/site/index.jsp

Psychcrawler
http://www.psychcrawler.com/

Wilson Social Sciences Abstracts Full Text
http://www.ovid.com/site/index.jsp

International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
http://www.ovid.com/site/index.jsp

ERIC Database Search
http://www.askeric.org/Eric/

Medline
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi

Medical Journals
http://www.medbioworld.com/med/journals/med-bio.html

Criminal Justice Abstracts
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/frame.html?
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals/details/j0382.html

NCJRS Abstracts Database
http://www.ncjrs.org/search.html

Bureau of Justice Statistics
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/

FedStats
http://www.fedstats.gov/

Federal Justice Statistics Resource Center
http://fjsrc.urban.org/

JRSA State Statistical Analysis Centers
http://www.jrsainfo.org/sac/index.html

College and University Crime Stats
http://www.securityoncampus.org/crimestats/index.html

National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/index.html

National Consortium on Violence Research
http://www.ncovr.heinz.cmu.edu

Agencies Providing Criminal Justice Information
http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/cjlinks/info.html

Cybrary
http://talkjustice.com/cybrary.asp

United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute
http://www.unicri.it

Interpol
http://www.interpol.int/

Search Bug
http://www.searchbug.com/

Net Detective
http://www.reversephonedirectory.com/netdet2000/

Due Diligence Data
http://world.std.com/~mmoore/

Leon Co., FL Clerk of Courts
http://www.clerk.leon.fl.us/

Florida Dept. of Corrections Inmate Population Information Search
http://www.dc.state.fl.us/activeinmates/search.asp

Florida Dept. of Corrections Supervised Population Information Search
http://www.dc.state.fl.us/activeoffenders/search.asp

Florida Dept. of Law Enforcement Sexual Offenders/Predators Search
http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Sexual_Predators/index.asp

Freedom of Information Act Services
http://www.rcfp.org/foi.html

5. What Kinds of Specialty Search Sites are Available?

Comparison Shopping and Auctions:

Productopia
http://www.productopia.com/

My Simon
http://www.mysimon.com/

Price Watch
http://www.pricewatch.com/

CNET Shopper
http://shopper.cnet.com/

EBay
http://www.ebay.com

uBid
http://www.ubid.com/

PayPal
http://www.paypal.com

Places:

MSN Maps
http://maps.msn.com

MapQuest
http://www.mapquest.com/

TerraServer
http://www.terraserver.microsoft.com/

MapTech
http://www.maptech.com/

Priceline.com
http://www.priceline.com/

Hotels and Travel on the Net
http://www.hotelstravel.com/homepage.html

Notable Bed and Breakfast Directories
http://www.paii.org/travelers/

People:

Idealist: Find Non-profit Organizations, Jobs, and Internships
http://www.idealist.org/

Scholarly Societies
http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/society/overview.html

 

International Human Rights Advocacy Groups

http://www.webcom.com/hrin/intlgrps.html

Lawyers.com
http://www.lawyers.com/

DoctorDirectory.com
http://www.doctordirectory.com/doctors/directory/default.asp

U.S. Directory of Investigative Journalists
http://www.ire.org/membership/usa.html

Experts Registry of Authors, Consultants, and Expert Witnesses
http://www.experts.com/

Expert Central
http://expertcentral.com

At Hand Network Yellow Pages
http://www.athand.com/

CopCareer.com
http://www.copcareer.com/

Corrections.com Jobs
http://database.corrections.com/career/index.asp

6. How Can I Submit New Web Sites to Search Engines?

Of growing importance is the inclusion of metatags in all Web documents. More and more search engine databases rely on metatags to index Web sites. A metatag is a simple line of code embedded in the header of an HTML document, having the format below:

<meta NAME="keys" CONTENT="cecil greek, corrections, pirates, springsteen, criminology, FSU"> 

After "CONTENT=" is the list of keywords for my personal home page. Following the rules below will help maximize metatag keyword usage:

• Use plurals for your keywords. Search engines will process both the singular and plural form, repeating both is not necessary. Avoid 'word stuffing' or excessive repetition, in the keywords section of your <META> tags which may cause your search engine to penalize your site's placement.
• Construct your keyword list with commas separating the words.
• When determining your list be sure to think like you potential visitor. What terms would they use to find a site with the content, products or services your site offers? A good method to determine your keywords is to brainstorm at least 50 words then narrow down and focus on your content.
• Misspell keywords if common misspellings are used by newcomers in your industry. For example, DIRECTV, a digital satellite television service is frequently referred to as Direct TV.