Steps to write a term paper on a Canadian perspective of criminal justice

Find three peer-reviewed Canadian journal articles for your topic

To have selected the three Canadian based empirical, peer-reviewed journal articles for your topic and read/reviewed these studies. Please note that your three articles must have conducted research on your topic from a Canadian perspective! I suggest adding ‘Canada’ to your search terms when searching for your articles. Journal articles that conduct research are called primary sources.

Based on these three studies, you need to generate your argument/opinion on your topic

I suggest using both ‘Criminal Justice Abstracts’ and ‘PsycInfo’ as your research databases when searching for scholarlypeer-reviewed articles

Read the chapter that is associated with your topic in full so that you are familiar with the topic in general terms.

Start researching the topic in the KPU library catalogue and/or other academic search engines to find key sources on that topic. Calling/seeing a KPU librarian can be very helpful in refining your search. Also, the required video postings in Moodle are excellent sources to help you identify scholarlypeer-reviewed studies on your topic from a Canadian perspective.

Generate a thesis statement; that is, a statement that clearly specifies what the point of your term paper is and how and why you are discussing it. This means you will have to narrow down a specific argument or issue within the general topic that you were assigned.

Be sure to keep track of the sources that you are drawing from for each of the points you make so that you can properly cite these sources throughout your paper (in APA format) and then generate a Reference Page at the end of your paper in APA format.

Introduce your topic! Then, state what your argument/opinion on the topic is and why you feel that way. For example, do you agree or disagree with the issue that this topic represents? Do you think this is a timelycriminal justice issue in BC or Canada? Is this issue a major problem in Canada’s criminal justice system? How do you think this issue affects the Canadian criminal justice system and why? Discuss how your Assignment 2 paper will be structured (i.e. what do you intend to discuss). Be sure to specify which component of the Canadian Criminal Justice System your topic pertains to (police, courts or corrections).

Three Articles (use in-text citations in APA format for each article) (1 page) For each of your three articles, introduce the study, what the purpose of the study is and why the study is relevant to your argument/opinion.

Course Textbook Information (use in-text citations in APA format for the textbook) (1/2 page) Discuss which Chapter from the course textbook your topic is discussed in. Discuss the way(s) in which your textbook discusses your topic and whether this discussion is relevant to your argument/opinion.