Locate and list at least 5 academic journal articles (including legal journals if relevant) that discuss the event selected and review them.  Your review of each article should be

2. Locate and list at least 5 academic journal articles (including legal journals if relevant) that discuss the event selected and review them.  Your review of each article should be at least 150 words in length. These are secondary sources.

3. Locate and list at least 5 newspaper archives/articles on your selected event in your library or via a reputable online source.  Based on the date(s) and location(s) of the event selected, look up the local, regional, and national newspapers for articles on this event. Read all relevant news articles and provide a brief, 50 word max summary of the article.  These are primary sources. (Newspaper archives for older newspapers are often housed in a microfilm/microfiche area.  If you are unfamiliar with using microfilm or microfiche, please ask a librarian for assistance.)

4. Compare the stories in the news articles to those in the journal articles.   How does each portray the event under study?  

5. If you were going to write a journal article that discusses this event, how would you improve the articles you’ve read based on the material in newspaper articles?

Part B.  Is criminology becoming more qualitative? 

Quite a few classic studies in criminology are qualitative, but for the past 20-30 years or so, there has been a focus (some would say bias) toward the publication of quantitative studies. 

• Is the tide turning? 
• Are criminology journals more open to qualitative methods than they have been in the past 20-30 years? To address this question, select a criminology/criminal justice journal for which your library has at least 20 years of back issues. 

Good choices are: British Journal of Criminology, Crime and Delinquency, Crime and Justice, Criminal Justice and Behavior, Criminal Justice Review, Criminology, Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, and Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. 

1. Review all of the abstracts for three issues within the past 2 years.  For each article, note whether the article included any qualitative data. Note whether the article also used quantitative data (This can be a simple count…e.g. for article 1, there were 10 references to qualitative data and 12 references to quantitative data).
2. Locate issues in the same journals from 10 years ago.  Repeat step 1.
3. Do the same for 15 years ago, 20 years ago, etc. (or first year of publication if less than 20 years ago).  
4. Write a brief report (200 words minimum) in which you assess how the number of articles using qualitative methods has changed during this time period (or hasn’t changed).

Part C.  Qualitative Analysis in Print

This exercise asks you to examine how professional social scientists present analyzed qualitative data.  

1. Select five qualitative criminological journal articles on a topic that is of interest to you.  These can be the same articles used in other assignments (e.g. the annotated bibliography or literature review assignments) as those selected for other student projects. 
2. Evaluate the data presented in these articles.  What data is presented?  How is it presented?  Is it properly authenticated?
3. Evaluate the conclusions of each article.
4. Point out at least three examples where the data could be presented and analyzed in a better fashion.  Suggest the improvements.  

Submission and Grading Criteria

• Your submission should include all items, answered questions, and write-ups above
• Structure
  
  • 1” Margins on all 4 sides. Arial font, 12 pt font
  • Indent new paragraphs. Double-spaced
  • Use proper APA citation.
  • MS Word document (.doc or .docx)
• Content
  
  • Fully addresses all questions
  • Free of grammatical and spelling errors
  • Follow traditional academic paper requirements
• Worth 25% of your grade. Refer to the Assignment Grading Rubric in Course Resources.