This book is designed to help students learn how to research and write in criminal justice, and improve their writing ability in general. While helping students with every aspect of the writing process-formatting, source citations, grammar, sentence structure, research, and utilizing available sources-it relieves instructors from the time consuming job of teaching these skills, and allows them to concentrate on the subject matter of the course they are teaching. This book is the most comprehensive book on the market that deals specifically with writing criminal justice papers. It gives specific directions for writing a variety of papers in criminal justice, from introductory to advanced, while also providing instructions on how to write, and how to format the paper and cite sources following the American Sociological Association's and the American Psychological Association's guidelines.

Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 Writing as Communication -- Writing to Learn -- The Irony of Writing -- Challenge Yourself -- Maintain Self-Confidence -- The Writing Process -- Learning the Nature of the Process -- Planning -- Drafting -- Revising -- Editing -- Proofreading -- ch. 2 Writing Competently -- Guidelines for the Competent Writer -- Consider Your Audience -- Aim for Consistency -- Have Confidence in What You Already Know about Writing! -- Eliminate Chronic Errors -- Punctuation, Grammar, and Spelling -- Apostrophes -- Capitalization -- Colons -- Commas -- Misplaced Modifiers -- Parallelism -- Fused (Run-on) Sentences -- Pronoun Errors -- Quotation Marks -- Semicolons -- Sentence Fragments -- Spelling -- ch. 3 Student Paper Formats -- Preliminary Considerations -- Margins -- Pagination -- Title Page -- Abstract -- Executive Summary -- Outline Summary -- Table of Contents -- Lists of Tables and Figures -- Text -- Headings and Subheadings -- Tables. Note continued: Illustrations and Figures -- Reference Listing -- Appendixes -- ch. 4 Citing Sources in ASA Style -- Introduction to ASA Style -- What to Document -- ASA Style in Papers -- Text Citations in ASA Style -- Samples of ASA Citation Style -- References in ASA Style -- Samples of ASA Reference Style -- Electronic Sources -- Text Citations for Electronic Sources -- References for Electronic Sources -- ch. 5 Citing Sources in APA Style -- Introduction to APA Style -- What to Document -- Text Citations in APA Style -- Samples of APA Citation Style -- References in APA Style -- Samples of APA Reference Style -- ch. 6 Organizing the Research Process -- Strategy for the Research Process -- Understand Your Assignment -- Establish Your Topic -- Set Your Purpose -- Determine Your Audience -- Decide on Your Kind of Research -- Keep Your Perspective -- Effective Research Methods -- Establish an Effective Schedule -- Give Yourself Plenty of Time -- Do Background Reading. Note continued: Narrow Your Topic and Establish a Working Thesis -- Develop a Working Bibliography -- Write for Needed Information -- Evaluate Written Sources -- Use Photocopies and Download Articles -- Determine whether to Conduct Interviews or Surveys -- Draft a Thesis and Outline -- Write a First Draft -- Obtain Feedback -- Avoid Plagiarism -- When to Quote -- How to Paraphrase -- Avoid Plagiarism when Paraphrasing -- ch. 7 Information Sources -- Criminal justice online -- Library Research -- ch. 8 Reaction Papers -- Select a Suitable Reaction Statement -- Explain Your Selection -- Clearly Define the Issue Addressed in the Statement -- Clearly State Your Position on the Issue -- Defend Your Position -- Conclude Concisely -- A Sample Reaction Paper -- ch. 9 Article Critiques and Book Reviews -- Article Critiques -- Choosing an Article -- Writing the Critique -- A Sample Article Critique -- Book Reviews -- Objectives of a Book Review -- Sample Book Reviews. Note continued: Elements of a Book Review -- Types of Book Reviews: Reflective and Analytical -- Format and Length of a Book Review -- ch. 10 Annotated Bibliographies -- What Is an Annotated Bibliography? -- Why Write an Annotated Bibliography? -- Who Uses Annotated Bibliographies? -- What Is the Content of an Annotated Bibliography? -- Introduction -- Citations -- Annotations -- To Quote or Not to Quote? -- Summation -- Evaluation -- Reflection -- Sample Annotated Bibliographies -- ch. 11 Writing a Police Report -- What Is a Police Report? -- Why Write Police Reports? -- Who Uses Police Reports? -- Tips for Writing Effective Police Reports -- Put the Subject First -- Be Careful with Pronouns -- Use Active Verbs -- Employ a Clear Writing Style -- Assemble Meaningful Information -- What Is in the Narrative of a Good Police Report? -- Sample Narrative Police Reports -- ch. 12 Writing Probation and Parole Reports -- What are Probation and Parole Reports?. Note continued: Tips for Writing Effective Probation and Parole Reports -- The Daily Journal -- Violation Reports -- Presentence Investigation Reports -- ch. 13 Criminal Justice Agency Case Studies -- What Is a Case Study? -- Using Case Studies in Research -- Limitations of the Case Study Method -- Types of Case Studies Written in Criminal Justice -- How to Conduct a Criminal Justice Agency Case Study -- Selecting a Topic -- The Importance of Interviews -- Elements of the Case Study Paper -- Contents -- Text -- A Sample Case Study -- Summary -- ch. 14 Criminal Justice Policy Analysis Papers -- Learn The Basics of Policy Analysis -- What Is Policy Analysis? -- Write A Policy Analysis Paper -- The Contents of a Policy Analysis Paper -- Parameters of the Text -- The Format of a Policy Analysis Paper -- Analysis of A criminal Justice Policy -- A Sample Policy Analysis Paper.