CJS 211: Policing in America (Bailey): Home

Hello! I'm Jessie Long and I'm your librarian. My job is to help you find the information you need for your assignments in CJS 211.  The Gardner-Harvey Library website and the Rentschler Library website have a lot of wonderful resources for your research needs, and the ones listed below are some great starting spots for your searches.

Please feel free to contact me using the methods listed under my picture on the right.  You can also schedule a Research Consultation for a one on one appointment with me or any of our librarians.

I'm generally in the Middletown library (my office is GRD 131) from 8-5, Monday through Friday. I check my email throughout the day and answer questions as they are received. 

Not sure where or how to start your research? The following tutorials and videos below offer some quick insights to get you on track working on your topics.  

"The Research Process" tutorial takes you through the first steps of examining the details of the assignment, to choosing a topic, to conducting background information about your topic to getting started on more in-depth research and writing.

The "Choosing a Topic" tutorial helps guide you through narrowing down your topic to a more manageable size and crafting a research question from your topic.

The "How to Narrow Your Topic" video will walk you through the first stages of the research process, from starting with a broad area of interest, doing background research, to narrowing and tweaking your topic as you learn more, to forming a research question and thesis. 

Background Research Tips  tutorial offers information about where to start finding information on your topic. As a follow-up, see our Reference/Background page for sources to use for background information (Wikipedia is great, but these might offer additional information, including useful statistics, that can help shape the direction you work toward.) 

In "Beginning Research with Wikipedia/Google" you will learn how to use those sources to find out background information about your topic, determine appropriate keywords to use when researching your topic, and how using those pieces of information will make researching in library resources faster and easier.

The "Anatomy of a Research Paper" video explains the main parts of a research paper and what should be included in each part. If you need assistance with the writing part of your research assignment, please contact the Regionals Tutoring and Learning Center.