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Table of Contents

Introduction: A Guide to Writing in Criminal Justice and Criminology

Thinking like a criminal justice professional or criminologist
             Questions criminal justice professionals and criminologists ask 
             Ethics in criminal justice and criminology studies
             Kinds of evidence criminal justice professionals and criminologists use

Researching criminal justice and criminology
             Using databases for research
             Primary and secondary sources
             Locating and evaluating online sources
             Checklists for evaluating sources

Reading the literature in criminal justice and criminology
             Active reading
             Reading specific literature in the field
The process of writing papers and projects in criminal justice and criminology
             Considering your purpose and audience
             Checklist for assessing the writing situation
             Organizing your materials
             Drafting and developing a thesis
             Revising
             Revising and testing thesis statements
             Editing

Writing conventions in criminal justice and criminology
            Sentence structure
            Word choice
            Using visuals and presenting data

Integrating, citing, and documenting sources
           Avoiding plagiarism and recognizing intellectual property
           Quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing sources
           In-text citations in APA style
           Reference section in APA style
           APA manuscript format

Genres of writing in criminal justice and criminology
          Abstract
          Annotated bibliography
          Argument or position paper
          Analytical paper
          Case brief
          Administrative report
          Investigative report
          Literature review
          Professional memo
          Policy memo
          Poster presentation
          Research proposal
          Research paper: Original empirical research

Glossary of vocabulary in criminal justice and criminology
References
Resources for reading and writing in criminal justice and criminology
Practice activities
Practice activity: Formulating a research question about a topic
Practice activity: Locating important information in empirical research articles with IMRaD
Practice activity: Questions that criminal justice professionals and criminologists can answer
Practice activity: Understanding the difference between qualitative and quantitative data
Practice activity: Evaluating online information
Practice activity: Locating and evaluating sources
Practice activity: Locating online articles in your library’s database
Practice activity: Are my beliefs about crime supported in the literature?
Practice activity: Adding important details to an investigative report
Practice activity: Editing in APA style
Practice activity: Formatting citations in APA style
Practice activity: In-text citations in APA style
Practice activity: Developing thesis statements
Answers to selected activities

Sample student writing: Criminal justice and criminology
Administrative report: Crime in Leesburg, Virginia
Annotated bibliography: The Fourth Amendment and Internet Surveillance
Case study: DEA Regulatory Authority and the Opioid Epidemic: State-Corporate Crime
Literature review: Female Human Trafficking: Origins and Implications for Identity

More help with documentation: APA style
APA-style reference list: Additional examples

Editing strategies
            Subject-verb agreement
            Pronoun agreement, reference, and case
            Strong verbs
            Sentence fragments
            Run-on sentences
            Distracting shifts
            Parallel structure
           Clear, uncluttered sentences
           Sentence emphasis
           Commas
           Apostrophes
           Quotation marks

Authors

Stephen A. Bernhardt

Stephen A. Bernhardt is Professor of English and the Andrew B. Kirkpatrick Chair in Writing at the University of Delaware, where he teaches composition, grammar, and technical writing. His professional interests include computers in composition/distance education, writing across the curriculum, professional and technical communication, and visual rhetoric. He has also taught at New Mexico State University and at Southern Illinois University. The author of many journal articles and technical reports, Bernhardt is also the author of Writing at Work (1997) and coeditor of Expanding Literacies: English Teaching and the New Workplace (1998). Bernhardt designed the research plan and reworked content for Writers Help.

Nancy Sommers

Nancy Sommers, who has taught composition and directed composition programs for thirty years, now teaches in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. She led Harvard’s Expository Writing Program for twenty years, directing the first-year writing program and establishing Harvard’s WAC program. A two-time Braddock Award winner, Sommers is well known for her research and publications on student writing. Her articles “Revision Strategies of Student and Experienced Writers” and “Responding to Student Writing” are two of the most widely read and anthologized articles in the field of composition. Recently she has been exploring different audiences through publishing in popular media. Sommers is the lead author on Hacker handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin’s, and editor of Tiny Teaching Stories on Macmillan Learning’s Bits Blog.

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