Criminological Skills and Research for Beginners

Laura Caulfield is Professor and Chair of the Institute for Community Research and Development at the University of Wolverhampton, UK.

This book is a comprehensive and engaging guide to research methods in Criminology, and the skills required for academic success. It is designed as a lively and accessible guide to planning, conducting, and reporting research in the field.

Part I: Study Skills for Criminology Students 1. Writing Skills and Essay Writing 2. Referencing 3. Revision Skills and Examination Techniques 4. Presentation Skills Part II: The Importance of Criminological Research 5. The context of criminological research: power, knowledge, politics, and values 6. The significance of criminological research: understanding the philosophical roots of our claims to know about crime in society 7. The ethics of criminological research Part III: Getting Going with Criminological Research 8. Planning: Where do research ideas come from? How do we 'fine tune' them? 9. Critiquing the literature and the process of writing your formal review 10. Theories, methods, and their relationships to theories of knowledge 11. Preparing for the practical challenges of real-world crime research Part IV: Doing Criminological Research: Data Collection 12. Ethnographic approaches to research 13. Questionnaires and surveys 14. Using documentary and secondary data sources Part V: Doing Criminological Research: Analysis and writing-up 15. Analysing the data: Quantitative analysis 16. Analysing the data: Qualitative analysis 17. Analysing the data: Documents, texts, and other data 18. Writing-up criminological research.