How To Search
Criminal Justice Abstracts

CJ Abstracts contains citations and abstracts for thousands of journal articles, dissertations, books, and reports related to criminal justice, criminology, police, courts, victimology, deviancy, corrections, and juvenile justice (published from 1968 forward). Users can find copies of the articles by searching for the journals in the Libraries’ Catalog.

Please be sure to press the log out button at the top right when you are through using Criminal Justice Abstracts!

Getting Started

Simply click on "CJ Abstrcats" on the Libraries’ database list.

Basic Searching

> Connect keywords with AND, OR, NOT:
burglary AND prevention finds articles that contain both burglary and prevention
burglary OR theft finds articles that contain either burglary or theft
burglary NOT prevention finds articles containing burglary but not prevention

> Use an * on the root of a keyword to find variants of the word.
Example: burglar* finds burglar, burglars, and burglary.

> Enclose phrases in quotation marks.
Example: "due process of law" finds this exact phrase.

> If necessary, use parentheses to organize a complex search:
Alabama and (theft or steal) finds articles containing Alabama and either

Advanced Searching

> Click Change on the right side of the screen to limit a search to a particular date range or to a classification such as deviancy, offender, police, or victim.

> Select Advanced Search at the top left to limit your search to a particular journal.

> Click Index at the top left to browse a list of suggested terms when you are unsure of what keywords to use for a search.

Finding Copies of the Articles

A few citations now offer links to online texts. These citations display crimson flags next to the title and contain blue "EBSCO Online" links to the full texts. To find copies of other articles, you must look in the Libraries’ Catalog to see if the campus libraries own the journal containing the article:

> At the bottom on the citation, click the blue "Check for Holdings" to enter the Catalog.
> The journal will appear if the library owns it.
> Scroll down and see if the library has the appropriate month and year of the journal or magazine (Please note: if multiple headings for the journal appear, click on each heading to see if the library owns the appropriate month and year.)
> Write down the Location and Call Number for the journal or magazine. (In the Gorgas Library, recent issues are located on Floor 2. Older, Bound volumes are on Floor 4M). If the journal is not available in the campus libraries, the red message "Your search resulted in no hits!" will appear on the screen.
> Retrieve the article form the shelves.

Printing, emailing, and saving

Checkmark the records that you want to print, email, or save.

Printing: Click the Print icon at the top right of the result list. Click the yellow "Print" button at the top right. Click "OK".

Emailing: Click the Email icon at the top right of the results list. Fill out "From", "Send records to" and "subject" fields. Click the "Send Mail" button at the top right.

Saving: Insert a disk in the computer. Click the Save icon at the top of the page. Click the "Save" button at the top right. Select "A drive" from the "Save in" menu. Click "Save".

Help

>Ask a librarian at the Information Desk in one of the campus libraries.
>Call the Libraries at (205) 348-6047