Ethics in Law Enforcement

If you're not sure whether a website you've found is credible, use the Evaluating Web Sites libguide to help you develop your skill in assessing resources.

Need ideas?? Look at capstone papers!  Get topic ideas, key words, and resources.

Register and Make Requests via Interlibrary Loan

Interlibrary loan (ILL) is a common service between libraries. When the Library doesn't own or have access to an item, we can often borrow it from another source. A few limitations exist, so please review the following links:

• A quick video overview.
• Libguide explaining ILL & ILLiad (ILL).

Additional questions? Item unavailable via ILL? Don't hesitate to contact us about alternate options.

Is it scholarly and how do I limit my search?

• Quick tips for distinguishing scholarly materials (evaluating articles)
• Identifying scholarly journals
• Limiting your search to peer-reviewed articles. Every vendor does it differently. Explore some filtering options with this video. (Scholarly vs Popular Articles)

Take 10 minutes to so some brainstorming and start a searching journal. Ask yourself the following questions or similar ones.

• What do I know about my topic?
• What don't I know or what should I know about my topic?
• What vocabulary surrounds this topic?
• Are there any definitions I should know?
• Are there different spellings based on language or culture? (i.e., American vs. British)
• Are there any organizations or associations focused on this topic?
• Are there any experts on this topic? Who are they? What have they written?
• What are the significant milestones surrounding this topic or field of study?
• etc.

Keep a record of the answers and additional questions that come up as a result of this process. As you progress, you will begin to develop a 360 view of your topic.

As much as we want it to be otherwise, no one database or website provides everything fulltext or free. Don't give up yet! There are ways to acquire materials, so be persistent.  Maybe the item you need is available via another database or another library.

• This video explains how to use the e-Journal Portal to locate fulltext in our databases.
• Refer to interlibrary loan if you need to borrow articles from another library
• Ask one of the librarians for help identifying other libraries in your region.

A DOI (digital object identifier) is a numeric name given to a journal article or any other type of content found on the Internet.  DOI names are used to provide current information about articles, including where they (or information about them) can be found on the Internet.

If you can't locate a DOI in the database where you found the article, or on a page of the article itself, here's something else to try:

The website https://www.crossref.org/guestquery/ has a form that allows researchers to enter an article author and title, and search for the DOI if one exists. Skip the first "Bibliographic Metadata search" and scroll down to the "Search on article title" area.  Enter the information and click search.  If no results appear, try the top search, entering more information about the article.

If you can't locate a DOI in this way, remember that including it in your citation is not an absolute requirement of APA style. You may omit it if not found.