scholarly articles essay

Guide to Scholarly Articles

Getting started, what makes an article scholarly, why does this matter.

• Scholarly vs. Popular vs. Trade Articles
• Types of Scholarly Articles
• Anatomy of Scholarly Articles
• Tips for Reading Scholarly Articles

Scholarship is a conversation.

That conversation is often found in the form of published materials such as books, essays, and articles. Here, we will focus on scholarly articles because scholarly articles often contain the most current scholarly conversation.

After reading through this guide on scholarly articles you will be able to identify and describe different types of scholarly articles. This will allow you to navigate the scholarly conversation more effectively which in turn will make your research more productive.

The distinguishing feature of a scholarly article is not that it is without errors; rather, a scholarly article is distinguished by a few characteristics which reduce the likelihood of errors. For our purposes, those characteristics are expert authors , peer-review , and citations .

• Expert Authors  - Authority is constructed and contextual. In other words it is built through academic credentialing and lived experience. Scholarly articles are written by experts in their respective fields rather than generalists. Expertise often comes in the form of academic credentials. For example, an article about the spread of various diseases should be written by someone with credentials and experience in immunology or public health.
• Peer-review  - Peer-review is the process whereby scholarly articles are vetted and improved. In this process an author submits an article to a journal for publication. However, before publication, an editor of the journal will send the article to other experts in the field to solicit their informed and professional opinions of it. These reviewers (sometimes called referees) will give the editor feedback regarding the quality of the article. Based on this process, articles may be published as is, published after specific changes are made, or not published at all.
• Citations  - One of the key differences between scholarly articles and other kinds of articles is that the former contain citations and bibliographies. These citations allow the reader to follow up on the author's sources to verify or dispute the author's claim.

There is a well-known axiom that says "Garbage in, garbage out." In the context of research this means that the quality of your research output is dependent on the information sources that go into you own research. Generally speaking, the information found in scholarly articles is more reliable than information found elsewhere. It is important to identify scholarly articles and prioritize them in your own research.

• Next: Scholarly vs. Popular vs. Trade Articles >>
• Last Updated: Aug 23, 2023 8:53 AM
• URL: https://researchguides.library.tufts.edu/scholarly-articles

Finding Scholarly Articles: Home

What's a Scholarly Article?

Your professor has specified that you are to use scholarly (or primary research or peer-reviewed or refereed or academic) articles only in your paper. What does that mean?

Scholarly or primary research articles are peer-reviewed , which means that they have gone through the process of being read by reviewers or referees  before being accepted for publication. When a scholar submits an article to a scholarly journal, the manuscript is sent to experts in that field to read and decide if the research is valid and the article should be published. Typically the reviewers indicate to the journal editors whether they think the article should be accepted, sent back for revisions, or rejected.

To decide whether an article is a primary research article, look for the following:

• The author’s (or authors') credentials and academic affiliation(s) should be given;
• There should be an abstract summarizing the research;
• The methods and materials used should be given, often in a separate section;
• There are citations within the text or footnotes referencing sources used;
• Results of the research are given;
• There should be discussion   and  conclusion ;
• With a bibliography or list of references at the end.

Caution: even though a journal may be peer-reviewed, not all the items in it will be. For instance, there might be editorials, book reviews, news reports, etc. Check for the parts of the article to be sure.   

You can limit your search results to primary research, peer-reviewed or refereed articles in many databases. To search for scholarly articles in  HOLLIS , type your keywords in the box at the top, and select  Catalog&Articles  from the choices that appear next.   On the search results screen, look for the  Show Only section on the right and click on  Peer-reviewed articles . (Make sure to  login in with your HarvardKey to get full-text of the articles that Harvard has purchased.)

Many of the databases that Harvard offers have similar features to limit to peer-reviewed or scholarly articles.  For example in Academic Search Premier , click on the box for Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals  on the search screen.

Review articles are another great way to find scholarly primary research articles.   Review articles are not considered "primary research", but they pull together primary research articles on a topic, summarize and analyze them.  In Google Scholar , click on Review Articles  at the left of the search results screen. Ask your professor whether review articles can be cited for an assignment.

A note about Google searching.  A regular Google search turns up a broad variety of results, which can include scholarly articles but Google results also contain commercial and popular sources which may be misleading, outdated, etc.  Use Google Scholar  through the Harvard Library instead.

About Wikipedia .  W ikipedia is not considered scholarly, and should not be cited, but it frequently includes references to scholarly articles. Before using those references for an assignment, double check by finding them in Hollis or a more specific subject  database .

Still not sure about a source? Consult the course syllabus for guidance, contact your professor or teaching fellow, or use the Ask A Librarian service.

• Last Updated: Oct 3, 2023 3:37 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/FindingScholarlyArticles

Harvard University Digital Accessibility Policy

How to Find, Evaluate, and Cite Scholarly Articles: Getting Started

• Getting Started
• Finding Articles
• Evaluating Articles
• Citing Articles

Header Image

This guide features information and resources on scholarly articles. You'll find material on how to:

• find articles
• evaluate the credibility of articles
• read and annotate articles
• cite articles

What is a Scholarly Article?

Scholarly articles , also known as  journal articles , are  essay-length publications that make arguments, present research, and draw conclusions about an idea, problem, or text . You may read scholarly articles for a class assignment or while conducting your own original research. 

How to Read a Scholarly Article   This article breaks down the components of scholarly articles and features tips for reading them.

• Next: Finding Articles >>
• Last Updated: Sep 30, 2022 5:14 AM
• URL: https://paperpile.libguides.com/scholarly-articles

Evaluating Information Sources

• Evaluate Your Sources
• Publication Types and Bias

Structure of Scientific Papers

Reading a scholarly article, additional reading tips, for more information.

• Reading Scholarly Articles
• Impact Factors and Citation Counts
• Predatory Publishing

Research papers generally follow a specific format. Here are the different parts of the scholarly article.

Abstract (Summary)

The abstract, generally written by the author(s) of the article, provides a concise summary of the whole article. Usually it highlights the focus, study results and conclusion(s) of the article. 

Introduction (Why)

In this section, the authors introduce their topic, explain the purpose of the study, and present why it is important, unique or how it adds to existing knowledge in their field. Look for the author's hypothesis or thesis here. 

Introduction - Literature Review (Who else)

Many scholarly articles include a summary of previous research or discussions published on this topic, called a "Literature Review".  This section outlines what others have found and what questions still remain.

Methodology  / Materials and Methods (How) 

Find the details of how the study was performed in this section. There should be enough specifics so that you could repeat the study if you wanted. 

Results   (What happened)

This section includes the findings from the study. Look for the data and statistical results in the form of tables, charts, and graphs. Some papers include an analysis here.

Discussion  / Analysis  (What it means)

This section should tell you what the authors felt was significant about their results. The authors analyze their data and describe what they believe it means.

Conclusion (What was learned)

Here the authors offer their final thoughts and conclusions and may include: how the study addressed their hypothesis, how it contributes to the field, the strengths and weaknesses of the study, and recommendations for future research. Some papers combine the discussion and conclusion.

A scholarly paper can be difficult to read. Instead of reading straight through, try focusing on the different sections and asking specific questions at each point.

What is your research question? 

When you select an article to read for a project or class, focus on your topic. Look for information in the article that is relevant to your research question. 

Read the abstract first  as it covers basics of the article. Questions to consider: 

• What is this article about? What is the working hypothesis or thesis?
• Is this related to my question or area of research?

Second: Read the introduction and discussion/conclusion.  These sections offer the main argument and hypothesis of the article. Questions to consider for the introduction: 

• What do we already know about this topic and what is left to discover?
• What have other people done in regards to this topic?
• How is this research unique?
• Will this tell me anything new related to my research question?

Questions for the discussion and conclusion: 

• What does the study mean and why is it important?
• What are the weaknesses in their argument?
• Is the conclusion valid?

Next: Read about the Methods/Methodology.  If what you've read addresses your research question, this should be your next section. Questions to consider:

• How did the author do the research? Is it a qualitative or quantitative project?
• What data are the study based on?
• Could I repeat their work? Is all the information present in order to repeat it?

Finally: Read the Results and Analysis.  Now read the details of this research. What did the researchers learn? If graphs and statistics are confusing, focus on the explanations around them. Questions to consider: 

• What did the author find and how did they find it?
• Are the results presented in a factual and unbiased way?
• Does their analysis agree with the data presented?
• Is all the data present?
• What conclusions do you formulate from this data? (And does it match with the Author's conclusions?)

Review the References (anytime): These give credit to other scientists and researchers and show you the basis the authors used to develop their research.  The list of references, or works cited, should include all of the materials the authors used in the article. The references list can be a good way to identify additional sources of information on the topic. Questions to ask:

• What other articles should I read?
• What other authors are respected in this field?
• What other research should I explore?

When you read these scholarly articles, remember that you will be writing based on what you read.

While you are Reading:

• Keep in mind your research question
• Focus on the information in the article relevant to your question (feel free to skim over other parts)
• Question everything you read - not everything is 100% true or performed effectively
• Think critically about what you read and seek to build your own arguments
• Read out of order! This isn't a mystery novel or movie, you want to start with the spoiler
• Use any keywords printed by the journals as further clues about the article
• Look up words you don't know

How to Take Notes on the Article

Try different ways, but use the one that fits you best. Below are some suggestions:

• Print the article and highlight, circle and otherwise mark while you read (for a PDF, you can use the highlight text  feature in Adobe Reader)
• Take notes on the sections, for example in the margins (Adobe Reader offers pop-up  sticky notes )
• Highlight only very important quotes or terms - or highlight potential quotes in a different color
• Summarize the main or key points

Reflect on what you have read - draw your own conclusions . As you read jot down questions that come to mind. These may be answered later on in the article or you may have found something that the authors did not consider. Here are a few questions that might be helpful:

• Have I taken time to understand all the terminology?
• Am I spending too much time on the less important parts of this article?
• Do I have any reason to question the credibility of this research?
• What specific problem does the research address and why is it important?
• How do these results relate to my research interests or to other works which I have read?
• Anatomy of a Scholarly Article (Interactive tutorial) Andreas Orphanides, North Carolina State University Libraries, 2009
• How to Read an Article in a Scholarly Journal (Research Guide) Cayuga Community College Library, 2016
• How To Read a Scholarly Journal Article (YouTube Video) Tim Lockman, Kishwaukee College Library, 2012.
• How To Read a Scientific Paper (Interactive tutorial) Michael Fosmire, Purdue University Libraries, 2013. PDF
• How to Read a Scientific Paper (Online article) Science Buddies, 2012
• How to Read a Scientific Research Paper (Article) Durbin Jr., C. G. Respiratory Care, 2009
• The Illusion of Certainty and the Certainty of Illusion: A Caution when Reading Scientific Articles (Article) T. A. Lang, International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2011,
• Infographic: How to Read Scientific Papers Natalia Rodriguez, Elsevier, 2015
• Library Research Methods: Read & Evaluate Culinary Institute of America Library, 2016
• << Previous: Publication Types and Bias
• Next: Impact Factors and Citation Counts >>
• Last Updated: Mar 8, 2024 1:17 PM
• URL: https://libguides.usc.edu/evaluate

What is a Scholarly Article: What is a scholarly article

Determineif a source is scholarly, determine if a source is scholarly, what is a scholarly source.

Scholarly sources (also referred to as academic, peer-reviewed, or refereed sources) are written by experts in a particular field and serve to keep others interested in that field up to date on the most recent research, findings, and news. These resources will provide the most substantial information for your research and papers.

What is peer-review?

When a source has been peer-reviewed, it has undergone the review and scrutiny of a review board of colleagues in the author’s field. They evaluate this source as part of the body of research for a particular discipline and make recommendations regarding its publication in a journal, revisions prior to publication, or, in some cases, reject its publication.

Why use scholarly sources?

Scholarly sources’ authority and credibility improve the quality of your own paper or research project.

How can I tell if a source is scholarly?

The following characteristics can help you differentiate scholarly sources from those that are not. Be sure to look at the criteria in each category when making your determination, rather than basing your decision on only one piece of information.

• Are author names provided?
• Are the authors’ credentials provided?
• Are the credentials relevant to the information provided?
• Who is the publisher of the information?
• Is the publisher an academic institution, scholarly, or professional organization?
• Is their purpose for publishing this information evident?
• Who is the intended audience of this source?
• Is the language geared toward those with knowledge of a specific discipline rather than the general public?
• Why is the information being provided?
• Are sources cited?
• Are there charts, graphs, tables, and bibliographies included?
• Are research claims documented?
• Are conclusions based on evidence provided?
• How long is the source?

Currency/Timeliness

• Is the date of publication evident?

Additional Tips for Specific Scholarly Source Types

Each resource type below will also have unique criteria that can be applied to it to determine if it is scholarly.

• Books published by a University Press are likely to be scholarly.
• Professional organizations and the U.S. Government Printing Office can also be indicators that a book is scholarly.
• Book reviews can provide clues as to if a source is scholarly and highlight the intended audience. See our  Find Reviews  guide to locate reviews on titles of interest.
• Are the author’s professional affiliations provided?
• Who is the publisher?
• How frequently is the periodical published?
• How many and what kinds of advertisements are present? For example, is the advertising clearly geared towards readers in a specific discipline or occupation?
• For more information about different periodical types, see our  Selecting Sources  guide.
• What is the domain of the page (for example: .gov, .edu, etc.)?
• Who is publishing or sponsoring the page?
• Is contact information for the author/publisher provided?
• How recently was the page updated?
• Is the information biased? Scholarly materials published online should not have any evidence of bias.

Is My Source Scholarly? (Accessible View)

Step 1: Source

The article is most likely scholarly if:

• You found the article in a library database or Google Scholar
• The journal the article appears in is peer-reviewed

Move to Step 2: Authors

Step 2: Authors

The source is most likely scholarly if:

• The authors’ credentials are provided
• The authors are affiliated with a university or other research institute

Move to Step 3: Content

Step 3: Content

• The source is longer than 10 pages
• Has a works cited or bibliography
• It does not attempt to persuade or bias the reader
• It attempts to persuade or bias the reader, but treats the topic objectively, the information is well-supported, and it includes a works cited or bibliography

If the article meets the criteria in Steps 1-3 it is most likely scholarly.

Common Characteristics of a Scholarly Article

Common characteristics of scholarly (research) articles.

Articles in scholarly journals may also be called research journals, peer reviewed journals, or refereed journals. These types of articles share many common features, including:

• articles always provide the name of the author or multiple authors
• author(s) always have academic credentials (e.g. biologist, chemist, anthropologist, lawyer)
• articles often have a sober, serious look
• articles may contain many graphs and charts; few glossy pages or color pictures
• author(s) write in the language of the discipline (e.g. biology, chemistry, anthropology, law, etc.)
• authors write for other scholars, and emerging scholars
• authors always cite their sources in footnotes, bibliographies, notes, etc.
• often (but not always) associated with universities or professional organizations

Types of Scholarly Articles

Peer Review in 3 Minutes

North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries (3:15)

• What do peer reviewers do?  How are they similar to or different from editors?
• Who are the primary customers of scholarly journals?
• Do databases only include peer-reviewed articles?  How do you know?

Is my source scholarly

Is My Source Scholarly?: INFOGRAPHIC

This infographic is part of the Illinois Library's Determine if a source is scholarly.

"Is my source scholarly" by Illinois Library  https://www.library.illinois.edu/ugl/howdoi/scholarly/

Anatomy of a Scholarly Article: Interactive Tutorial

Typical Sections of a Peer-Reviewed Research Article

Typical sections of peer-reviewed research articles.

Research articles in many disciplines are organized into standard sections. Although these sections may vary by discipline, common sections include:

• Introduction
• Materials and Methods

It's not hard to spot these sections; just look for bold headings in the article, as shown in these illustrations:

• Last Updated: Oct 22, 2020 11:31 AM
• URL: https://libguides.mccd.edu/WhatisaScholarlyArticle

Scholarly Articles

Scholarly articles defined, how to find scholarly articles, how do i tell if an article is scholarly, reading and using scholarly articles.

Scholarly articles (also known as academic or peer-reviewed articles) are written by experts for experts (and for college students!). Scholarly articles usually contain cited references and are often written in specialized, technical language. They are in-depth explorations of focused topics, and because they’ve been through an intensive review process before publication, they are highly trustworthy sources. 

Learn more at  What Is a Refereed/Peer-Reviewed Article .

Almost every library database has a way to limit your keyword search so that you retrieve only scholarly articles. Look for checkboxes marked “scholarly” or “academic” or “peer-reviewed”: 

With practice, you can tell at a glance if an article is scholarly. Look for these characteristics of a scholarly article: 

• Even the title of a scholarly article may sound complicated—much more complicated than a news headline, for example 
• In-text citations throughout the article and a list of references at the end 
• The library database will usually show where the authors of an article work. 
• Scholarly articles are often written by people at research institutions, like a university or think tank or laboratory. 
• Abstract 
• Introduction 
• Methods 
• Results 
• Discussion 
• Literature Cited 
• For more info on the structure and characteristics of a scholarly article, see Anatomy of a Scholarly Article 
• Many library databases will indicate whether an article (or the journal it appeared in) is scholarly. And remember, “peer reviewed” and “academic” mean the same thing as “scholarly”: 

Distinguishing among Scholarly, Popular, and Trade Journals  offers more help understanding the differences between scholarly, popular, and trade journals.

Because they usually are written by experts, in specialized/technical language, scholarly articles can be hard to read! But if you review one carefully, even if you don’t understand every detail, you should be able to extract from the article one or two main ideas or facts that you can incorporate into your research project. 

In a scientific scholarly article, there may be terms you don’t understand—Google them! Also, a scientific article may contain complicated numerical/statistical data that’s hard for non-experts to understand. But again, you don’t have to understand every detail of the article to be able to use it! 

Try reviewing the Introduction section and Discussion section of a scientific article. That’s where the authors lay out the purpose of their research and the importance of what they discovered—you can often extract main ideas and interesting facts from those sections. 

• Last Updated: Jan 16, 2024 5:53 PM
• URL: https://libguides.umgc.edu/articles

Reference management. Clean and simple.

Google Scholar: the ultimate guide

What is Google Scholar?

Why is google scholar better than google for finding research papers, the google scholar search results page, the first two lines: core bibliographic information, quick full text-access options, "cited by" count and other useful links, tips for searching google scholar, 1. google scholar searches are not case sensitive, 2. use keywords instead of full sentences, 3. use quotes to search for an exact match, 3. add the year to the search phrase to get articles published in a particular year, 4. use the side bar controls to adjust your search result, 5. use boolean operator to better control your searches, google scholar advanced search interface, customizing search preferences and options, using the "my library" feature in google scholar, the scope and limitations of google scholar, alternatives to google scholar, country-specific google scholar sites, frequently asked questions about google scholar, related articles.

Google Scholar (GS) is a free academic search engine that can be thought of as the academic version of Google. Rather than searching all of the indexed information on the web, it searches repositories of:

• universities
• scholarly websites

This is generally a smaller subset of the pool that Google searches. It's all done automatically, but most of the search results tend to be reliable scholarly sources.

However, Google is typically less careful about what it includes in search results than more curated, subscription-based academic databases like Scopus and Web of Science . As a result, it is important to take some time to assess the credibility of the resources linked through Google Scholar.

➡️ Take a look at our guide on the best academic databases .

One advantage of using Google Scholar is that the interface is comforting and familiar to anyone who uses Google. This lowers the learning curve of finding scholarly information .

There are a number of useful differences from a regular Google search. Google Scholar allows you to:

• copy a formatted citation in different styles including MLA and APA
• export bibliographic data (BibTeX, RIS) to use with reference management software
• explore other works have cited the listed work
• easily find full text versions of the article

Although it is free to search in Google Scholar, most of the content is not freely available. Google does its best to find copies of restricted articles in public repositories. If you are at an academic or research institution, you can also set up a library connection that allows you to see items that are available through your institution.

The Google Scholar results page differs from the Google results page in a few key ways. The search result page is, however, different and it is worth being familiar with the different pieces of information that are shown. Let's have a look at the results for the search term "machine learning.”

• The first line of each result provides the title of the document (e.g. of an article, book, chapter, or report).
• The second line provides the bibliographic information about the document, in order: the author(s), the journal or book it appears in, the year of publication, and the publisher.

Clicking on the title link will bring you to the publisher’s page where you may be able to access more information about the document. This includes the abstract and options to download the PDF.

To the far right of the entry are more direct options for obtaining the full text of the document. In this example, Google has also located a publicly available PDF of the document hosted at umich.edu . Note, that it's not guaranteed that it is the version of the article that was finally published in the journal.

Below the text snippet/abstract you can find a number of useful links.

• Cited by : the cited by link will show other articles that have cited this resource. That is a super useful feature that can help you in many ways. First, it is a good way to track the more recent research that has referenced this article, and second the fact that other researches cited this document lends greater credibility to it. But be aware that there is a lag in publication type. Therefore, an article published in 2017 will not have an extensive number of cited by results. It takes a minimum of 6 months for most articles to get published, so even if an article was using the source, the more recent article has not been published yet.
• Versions : this link will display other versions of the article or other databases where the article may be found, some of which may offer free access to the article.
• Quotation mark icon : this will display a popup with commonly used citation formats such as MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard, and Vancouver that may be copied and pasted. Note, however, that the Google Scholar citation data is sometimes incomplete and so it is often a good idea to check this data at the source. The "cite" popup also includes links for exporting the citation data as BibTeX or RIS files that any major reference manager can import.

Pro tip: Use a reference manager like Paperpile to keep track of all your sources. Paperpile integrates with Google Scholar and many popular academic research engines and databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons and later cite them in thousands of citation styles:

Although Google Scholar limits each search to a maximum of 1,000 results , it's still too much to explore, and you need an effective way of locating the relevant articles. Here’s a list of pro tips that will help you save time and search more effectively.

You don’t need to worry about case sensitivity when you’re using Google scholar. In other words, a search for "Machine Learning" will produce the same results as a search for "machine learning.”

Let's say your research topic is about self driving cars. For a regular Google search we might enter something like " what is the current state of the technology used for self driving cars ". In Google Scholar, you will see less than ideal results for this query .

The trick is to build a list of keywords and perform searches for them like self-driving cars, autonomous vehicles, or driverless cars. Google Scholar will assist you on that: if you start typing in the search field you will see related queries suggested by Scholar!

If you put your search phrase into quotes you can search for exact matches of that phrase in the title and the body text of the document. Without quotes, Google Scholar will treat each word separately.

This means that if you search national parks , the words will not necessarily appear together. Grouped words and exact phrases should be enclosed in quotation marks.

A search using “self-driving cars 2015,” for example, will return articles or books published in 2015.

Using the options in the left hand panel you can further restrict the search results by limiting the years covered by the search, the inclusion or exclude of patents, and you can sort the results by relevance or by date.

Searches are not case sensitive, however, there are a number of Boolean operators you can use to control the search and these must be capitalized.

• AND requires both of the words or phrases on either side to be somewhere in the record.
• NOT can be placed in front of a word or phrases to exclude results which include them.
• OR will give equal weight to results which match just one of the words or phrases on either side.

➡️ Read more about how to efficiently search online databases for academic research .

In case you got overwhelmed by the above options, here’s some illustrative examples:

Tip: Use the advanced search features in Google Scholar to narrow down your search results.

You can gain even more fine-grained control over your search by using the advanced search feature. This feature is available by clicking on the hamburger menu in the upper left and selecting the "Advanced search" menu item.

Adjusting the Google Scholar settings is not necessary for getting good results, but offers some additional customization, including the ability to enable the above-mentioned library integrations.

The settings menu is found in the hamburger menu located in the top left of the Google Scholar page. The settings are divided into five sections:

• Collections to search: by default Google scholar searches articles and includes patents, but this default can be changed if you are not interested in patents or if you wish to search case law instead.
• Bibliographic manager: you can export relevant citation data via the “Bibliography manager” subsection.
• Languages: if you wish for results to return only articles written in a specific subset of languages, you can define that here.
• Library links: as noted, Google Scholar allows you to get the Full Text of articles through your institution’s subscriptions, where available. Search for, and add, your institution here to have the relevant link included in your search results.
• Button: the Scholar Button is a Chrome extension which adds a dropdown search box to your toolbar. This allows you to search Google Scholar from any website. Moreover, if you have any text selected on the page and then click the button it will display results from a search on those words when clicked.

When signed in, Google Scholar adds some simple tools for keeping track of and organizing the articles you find. These can be useful if you are not using a full academic reference manager.

All the search results include a “save” button at the end of the bottom row of links, clicking this will add it to your "My Library".

To help you provide some structure, you can create and apply labels to the items in your library. Appended labels will appear at the end of the article titles. For example, the following article has been assigned a “RNA” label:

Within your Google Scholar library, you can also edit the metadata associated with titles. This will often be necessary as Google Scholar citation data is often faulty.

There is no official statement about how big the Scholar search index is, but unofficial estimates are in the range of about 160 million , and it is supposed to continue to grow by several million each year.

Yet, Google Scholar does not return all resources that you may get in search at you local library catalog. For example, a library database could return podcasts, videos, articles, statistics, or special collections. For now, Google Scholar has only the following publication types:

• Journal articles : articles published in journals. It's a mixture of articles from peer reviewed journals, predatory journals and pre-print archives.
• Books : links to the Google limited version of the text, when possible.
• Book chapters : chapters within a book, sometimes they are also electronically available.
• Book reviews : reviews of books, but it is not always apparent that it is a review from the search result.
• Conference proceedings : papers written as part of a conference, typically used as part of presentation at the conference.
• Court opinions .
• Patents : Google Scholar only searches patents if the option is selected in the search settings described above.

The information in Google Scholar is not cataloged by professionals. The quality of the metadata will depend heavily on the source that Google Scholar is pulling the information from. This is a much different process to how information is collected and indexed in scholarly databases such as Scopus or Web of Science .

➡️ Visit our list of the best academic databases .

Google Scholar is by far the most frequently used academic search engine , but it is not the only one. Other academic search engines include:

• Science.gov
• Semantic Scholar
• scholar.google.fr : Sur les épaules d'un géant
• scholar.google.es (Google Académico): A hombros de gigantes
• scholar.google.pt (Google Académico): Sobre os ombros de gigantes
• scholar.google.de : Auf den Schultern von Riesen

➡️ Once you’ve found some research, it’s time to read it. Take a look at our guide on how to read a scientific paper .

No. Google Scholar is a bibliographic search engine rather than a bibliographic database. In order to qualify as a database Google Scholar would need to have stable identifiers for its records.

No. Google Scholar is an academic search engine, but the records found in Google Scholar are scholarly sources.

No. Google Scholar collects research papers from all over the web, including grey literature and non-peer reviewed papers and reports.

Google Scholar does not provide any full text content itself, but links to the full text article on the publisher page, which can either be open access or paywalled content. Google Scholar tries to provide links to free versions, when possible.

The easiest way to access Google scholar is by using The Google Scholar Button. This is a browser extension that allows you easily access Google Scholar from any web page. You can install it from the Chrome Webstore .

Read a scholarly article

• Introduction
• Types of Scholarly Articles
• Interactive Article Diagram
• Reading for different purposes

The Structure of Scholarly Articles

Understanding the structure of scholarly articles is probably the most important part of understanding the article. The following structure is used in most scholarly articles, with the exception of (a) articles which are  entirely  literature reviews and (b) humanities articles. 

These sections may not always be labeled this way, and sometimes multiple sections will be merged into one (like the introduction & literature review). 

Article sections in the order in which they appear

• Literature Review (sometimes not labeled)
• Methodology
• Discussion / Conclusion

Article sections in order of importance

You should always read..., the abstract.

The abstract is usually a one-paragraph summary of the article. If the article doesn't seem useful after reading the abstract, don't read any further.

The Introduction & Literature Review

The introduction and literature review will help you understand:

• What the authors are writing about (their research questions )
• Why the authors are writing about this topic
• What others have written on this topic

The Discussion & Conclusion

The discussion and conclusion are at the end (just before the reference list). If the authors conducted an experiment, these sections should provide a summary of what the authors found, how their findings fit into the larger conversation about the topic, and what they believe should be researched in the future.

You may not need to read...

Methodology & results.

Do you need to read the methodology & results sections? It depends on your purpose for reading the article. You may want to read these sections if:

You're using the article as a source in a research paper *

If you're a first or second year student, or the research paper is on a topic unrelated to your major , you may want to skip over these sections. These sections are the most difficult to understand unless you have a high level of expertise in both the topic and research in your discipline.

If you're a junior, a senior, or a graduate student, and the article is in your discipline, then you most likely have the level of expertise necessary to understand most of these sections.

You're conducting your own research project *

You may be required to read this section in a particular class.

If you're not sure whether you should read these sections, ask your professor.

* Research has two meanings:

• Doing a thorough investigation of a topic (this would include things like searching Google, doing library research, etc.). When we say "research paper", we're referring to this kind of research.
• Trying to answer a specific question through experimentation and analysis. When we say "research project", we're referring to this kind of research.

The methodology section:

• Explains how the authors intend to answer their research questions
• What kind of data they are going to collect, and from who (or what)
• How they are going to (or how they did) collect that data

The results section usually involves analysis of the data collected.

• Search Google or Wikipedia for unfamiliar terms or concepts
• Ask your professor for help with other questions

Here's a real-life example:

• Researchers wanted to know whether pet ownership and/or medication had the best effects on high blood pressure caused by stress.
• They tested this by having some participants adopt a pet and take a medication, while others just took medication.
• The data they collected included blood pressure readings.
• They analyzed this data using statistical methods.

Source : Allen, K., Shykoff, B. E., & Izzo Jr, J. L. (2001). Pet ownership, but not ACE inhibitor therapy, blunts home blood pressure responses to mental stress. Hypertension, 38 (4), 815-820.

Other Important Sections to Review

These parts of a scholarly article probably won't contribute to your understanding of the article, but they're helpful in other ways:

References / Bibliographies

If you've read the introduction and literature review, you may have come across some sources that might be useful for your topic. All their sources should be at the end of the article or in footnotes! Check out our guide on finding sources using bibliographies .

Citation information

Many articles have the journal title, volume and issue numbers, and page numbers listed right on the article. This information is usually at the top of the first page of the article.

Author credentials

Author credentials are usually listed on the first page of the article, underneath the authors' names, or listed as footnotes. These credentials usually indicate where the authors work. This should help if you want to contact the authors with questions!

• << Previous: Types of Scholarly Articles
• Next: Interactive Article Diagram >>
• Last Updated: Dec 19, 2019 11:08 AM
• URL: https://libraryguides.oswego.edu/c.php?g=890416

• Walden University
• Faculty Portal

Scholarly Writing: Scholarly Writing

Introduction.

Scholarly writing is also known as academic writing. It is the genre of writing used in all academic fields. Scholarly writing is not better than journalism, fiction, or poetry; it is just a different category. Because most of us are not used to scholarly writing, it can feel unfamiliar and intimidating, but it is a skill that can be learned by immersing yourself in scholarly literature. During your studies at Walden, you will be reading, discussing, and producing scholarly writing in everything from discussion posts to dissertations. For Walden students, there are plenty of opportunities to practice this skill in a writing intensive environment.

The resources in the Grammar & Composition tab provide important foundations for scholarly writing, so please refer to those pages as well for help on scholarly writing. Similarly, scholarly writing can differ depending on style guide. Our resources follow the general guidelines of the APA manual, and you can find more APA help in the APA Style tab.

Read on to learn about a few characteristics of scholarly writing!

Writing at the Graduate Level

Writing at the graduate level can appear to be confusing and intimidating. It can be difficult to determine exactly what the scholarly voice is and how to transition to graduate-level writing. There are some elements of writing to consider when writing to a scholarly audience: word choice, tone, and effective use of evidence . If you understand and employ scholarly voice rules, you will master writing at the doctoral level.

Before you write something, ask yourself the following: 

• Is this objective?
• Am I speaking as a social scientist? Am I using the literature to support my assertions?
• Could this be offensive to someone?
• Could this limit my readership?

Employing these rules when writing will help ensure that you are speaking as a social scientist. Your writing will be clear and concise, and this approach will allow your content to shine through.

Specialized Vocabulary

Scholarly authors assume that their audience is familiar with fundamental ideas and terms in their field, and they do not typically define them for the reader. Thus, the wording in scholarly writing is specialized, requiring previous knowledge on the part of the reader. You might not be able to pick up a scholarly journal in another field and easily understand its contents (although you should be able to follow the writing itself).

Take for example, the terms "EMRs" and "end-stage renal disease" in the medical field or the keywords scaffolding and differentiation in teaching. Perhaps readers outside of these fields may not be familiar with these terms. However, a reader of an article that contains these terms should still be able to understand the general flow of the writing itself.

Original Thought

Scholarly writing communicates original thought, whether through primary research or synthesis, that presents a unique perspective on previous research. In a scholarly work, the author is expected to have insights on the issue at hand, but those insights must be grounded in research, critical reading , and analysis rather than personal experience or opinion. Take a look at some examples below:

Needs Improvement: I think that childhood obesity needs to be prevented because it is bad and it causes health problems.

Better: I believe that childhood obesity must be prevented because it is linked to health problems and deaths in adults (McMillan, 2010).

Good: Georges (2002) explained that there "has never been a disease so devastating and yet so preventable as obesity" (p. 35). In fact, the number of deaths that can be linked to obesity are astounding. According to McMillan (2010), there is a direct correlation between childhood obesity and heart attacks later in their adult lives, and the American Heart Association's 2010 statistic sheet shows similar statistics: 49% of all heart attacks are preventable (AHA, 2010). Because of this correlation, childhood obesity is an issue that must be addressed and prevented to ensure the health of both children and adults.

Notice that the first example gives a personal opinion but cites no sources or research. The second example gives a bit of research but still emphasizes the personal opinion. The third example, however, still gives the writer's opinion (that childhood obesity must be addressed), but it does so by synthesizing the information from multiple sources to help persuade the reader.

Careful Citation

Scholarly writing includes careful citation of sources and the presence of a bibliography or reference list. The writing is informed by and shows engagement with the larger body of literature on the topic at hand, and all assertions are supported by relevant sources.

Crash Course in Scholarly Writing Video

Note that this video was created while APA 6 was the style guide edition in use. There may be some examples of writing that have not been updated to APA 7 guidelines.

• Crash Course in Scholarly Writing (video transcript)

Related Webinars

Didn't find what you need? Email us at [email protected] .

• Next Page: Common Course Assignments
• Office of Student Disability Services

Walden Resources

Departments.

• Academic Residencies
• Academic Skills
• Career Planning and Development
• Customer Care Team
• Field Experience
• Military Services
• Student Success Advising
• Writing Skills

Centers and Offices

• Center for Social Change
• Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services
• Office of Degree Acceleration
• Office of Research and Doctoral Services
• Office of Student Affairs

Student Resources

• Doctoral Writing Assessment
• Form & Style Review
• Quick Answers
• ScholarWorks
• SKIL Courses and Workshops
• Walden Bookstore
• Walden Catalog & Student Handbook
• Student Safety/Title IX
• Legal & Consumer Information
• Website Terms and Conditions
• Cookie Policy
• Accessibility
• Accreditation
• State Authorization
• Net Price Calculator
• Contact Walden

Walden University is a member of Adtalem Global Education, Inc. www.adtalem.com Walden University is certified to operate by SCHEV © 2024 Walden University LLC. All rights reserved.

Research Strategies

• Reference Resources
• News Articles
• Scholarly Sources
• Search Strategy
• OneSearch Tips
• Evaluating Information
• Revising & Polishing
• Presentations & Media
• MLA 9th Citation Style
• APA 7th Citation Style
• Other Citation Styles
• Citation Managers
• Annotated Bibliography
• Literature Review How to

What are Scholarly Sources?

Scholarly sources (also referred to as academic, peer-reviewed, or refereed sources) are written by subject experts with systems in place to ensure the quality and accuracy of information. 

Scholarly sources include books from academic publishers, peer-reviewed  journal articles , and reports from research institutes.

What is peer review?  When a source has been peer-reviewed, it has undergone the review and scrutiny of a review board of colleagues in the author’s field. They evaluate this source as part of the body of research for a particular discipline and make recommendations regarding its publication in a journal, revisions prior to publication, or, in some cases, reject its publication.

How to Read a Scholarly Article

Scholarly sources often have a particular writing style and can be challenging to read compared to other types of sources. When reading scholarly literature, read strategically. Don't start by reading the article from start to finish but rather focus on the sections that will give you the information you need first. This will quickly let you know what the article is about and its relevancy for your research. It will also prepare you for when you’re ready to read the full article, giving you a mental map of its structure and purpose.

Here is a suggestion on how to read a scholarly article and which sections to focus on first. 

Show/Hide Infographic Text

• Read the abstract An abstract is a summary of the article, and will give you an idea of what the article is about and how it will be written. If there are lots of complicated subject-specific words in the abstract, the article will be just as hard to read.
• Read the conclusion This is where the author will repeat all of their ideas and their findings. Some authors even use this section to compare their study to others. By reading this, you will notice a few things you missed, and will get another overview of the content.
• Read the first paragraph or the introduction This is usually where the author will lay out their plan for the article and describe the steps they will take to talk about their topic. By reading this, you will know what parts of the article will be most relevant to your topic!
• Read the first sentence of every paragraph These are called topic sentences, and will usually introduce the idea for the paragraph that follows. By reading this, you can make sure that the paragraph has information relevant to your topic before you read the entire thing.
• The rest of the article Now that you have gathered the idea of the article through the abstract, conclusion, introduction, and topic sentences, you can read the rest of the article!
• To review: Abstract, Conclusion,  Introduction, Topic Sentences, Entire Article

How can I tell if an article is scholarly?

There are several ways to determine whether an article qualifies as "scholarly" or "peer-reviewed". First it depends on how you found the source. If you are using library resources such as OneSearch or databases such as Academic Search Premier - you can limit the search to peer-reviewed journals. Many databases will have this feature to allow you to limit searches for scholarly, peer-reviewed, or academic sources.  

Here are some qualities that set them apart from "popular" sources such as newspapers, magazines, etc.

• Purpose : is to communicate research and scholarly ideas.
• Author(s):  are researchers, scholars, and/or faculty, and they will typically have an institutional affiliation listed.
• Citations: should have a works cited/references/bibliography with full citations.
• Length:  usually long, typically range between 8 and 30+ pages. 
• Audience: is other researchers, scholars, and/or faculty.
• Coverage:  tends to be focused and narrow. 
• Publisher:  are usually university presses, professional associations, academic institutions, and commercial publishers.
• Peer-review process can take months if not years--from the time that an article is submitted for review and ultimate publication.
• What it is NOT:  some parts of scholarly journals are not peer-reviewed. These include book reviews and letters/responses to the editor.

Ulrich's Periodicals Directory  (often referred to as  UlrichsWeb ) is a database that the University Library subscribes to. You may be told to "check Ulrich's," but what does that mean? Ulrich's will tell you if a journal is still in print, available online, where it is indexed, and most critically, what  type  of journal it is (scholarly, trade, popular, etc.). This is useful for students being asked to find specific types of sources.

Search using the name of the journal and then look for the black and white referee jacket. This indicates that the journals content is peer-reviewed. 

How can I tell if a book is scholarly?

Look for several things to determine if a book is scholarly:

• Publisher:  who is the publisher? University presses (e.g. Stanford University Press, University of Pittsburgh Press, University of Washington press) publish scholarly, academic books.
• Author:  what are the author's credentials? Typically written by a scholar/researcher with academic credentials listed. 
• Content:  scholarly books always have information cited in the text, in footnotes, and have a bibliography or references. Scholarly books also often contain a combination of primary and secondary sources.
• Style:  Language is formal and technical; usually contains discipline-specific jargon.

Where to find Scholarly Sources?

The library subscribes to over 250 databases! You can browse databases by Subject Area and read the description for the different types of resources you can find searching that particular database. Otherwise, here are some general multisubject databases and a good place to get started. 

• Academic Search Premier (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window Multi-disciplinary database provides full text for more than 4,600 journals, including full text for nearly 3,900 peer-reviewed titles.
• JSTOR This link opens in a new window Archive of back issues of core scholarly journals across a wide range of subjects, with an emphasis on arts, humanities, and social sciences. Also includes current content for select journals and a large collection of University Press books.
• OneSearch Here you can search for books and e-books, videos, articles, digital media, and more. Make sure to use the limiter on the left hand side and limit to Peer-Reviewed Journals.
• Project MUSE This link opens in a new window Full text of over 300 peer-reviewed journals published by university presses and scholarly societies with emphasis on humanities and social sciences.
• << Previous: News Articles
• Next: Search Strategy >>
• Last Updated: Apr 8, 2024 9:46 AM
• URL: https://libguides.csun.edu/research-strategies

Report ADA Problems with Library Services and Resources

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts

Research articles

SCB-YOLOv5: a lightweight intelligent detection model for athletes’ normative movements

Fuchs’ uveitis syndrome: a 20-year experience in 466 patients.

• Farzan Kianersi
• Hamidreza Kianersi
• Pegah Noorshargh

Longitudinal optical coherence tomography indices in idiopathic intracranial hypertension

• Rachel Shemesh
• Ruth Huna-Baron

A psycholinguistic study of intergroup bias and its cultural propagation

• Daniel Schmidtke
• Victor Kuperman

Effects of Lactobacillus -fermented low-protein diets on the growth performance, nitrogen excretion, fecal microbiota and metabolomic profiles of finishing pigs

• Dongyan Zhang

Genetic diversity and antagonistic properties of Trichoderma strains from the crop rhizospheres in southern Rajasthan, India

• Prashant P. Jambhulkar
• Bhumica Singh
• Pratibha Sharma

Equilibrium and kinetic modeling of Cr(VI) removal by novel tolerant bacteria species along with zero-valent iron nanoparticles

• Shashank Garg
• Simranjeet Singh
• Joginder Singh

Radiolysis of myoglobin concentrated gels by protons: specific changes in secondary structure and production of carbon monoxide

• Nicolas Ludwig
• Catherine Galindo
• Quentin Raffy

Embryo growth alteration and oxidative stress responses in germinating Cucurbita pepo seeds exposed to cadmium and copper toxicity

• Smail Acila
• Samir Derouiche
• Nora Allioui

Shear damage mechanisms of jointed rock mass: a macroscopic and mesoscopic study

• Chengcheng Zheng

A noise audit of human-labeled benchmarks for machine commonsense reasoning

• Mayank Kejriwal
• Henrique Santos
• Deborah L. McGuinness

A fused multi-subfrequency bands and CBAM SSVEP-BCI classification method based on convolutional neural network

• Dongyang Lei
• Chaoyi Dong

Transcriptomics analysis of long non-coding RNAs in smooth muscle cells from patients with peripheral artery disease and diabetes mellitus

• Yankey Yundung
• Shafeeq Mohammed
• Jaroslav Pelisek

Building adjustment capacity to cope with running water in cultured grass carp through flow stimulation conditions

• Qingrong Xie

A 2-order additive fuzzy measure identification method based on hesitant fuzzy linguistic interaction degree and its application in credit assessment

An air door opening and closing time identification and stage division method based on the wind speed data of a single sensor

• Wentian Shang

Implementation of a hybrid neural network control technique to a cascaded MLI based SAPF

• Rashmi Rekha Behera
• Ashish Ranjan Dash
• Demissie Jobir Gelmecha

Molecular modelling studies and in vitro enzymatic assays identified A 4-(nitrobenzyl)guanidine derivative as inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 Mpro

• Kaio Maciel de Santiago-Silva
• Priscila Goes Camargo
• Marcelle de Lima Ferreira Bispo

Study on dynamic characteristics of cavitation in underwater explosion with large charge

• Xian-pi Zhang
• Yuan-Qing Xu

Circulating microRNA-155-3p levels predicts response to first line immunotherapy in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma

• Maryam Soleimani
• Lucia Nappi

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Springer Nature - PMC COVID-19 Collection

How to Think about Criminal Justice Reform: Conceptual and Practical Considerations

Charis e. kubrin.

Social Ecology II, University of California, Room 3309, Irvine, CA 92697-7080 USA

Rebecca Tublitz

How can we improve the effectiveness of criminal justice reform efforts? Effective reform hinges on shared understandings of what the problem is and shared visions of what success looks like. But consensus is hard to come by, and there has long been a distinction between “policy talk” or how problems are defined and solutions are promoted, and “policy action” or the design and adoption of certain policies. In this essay, we seek to promote productive thinking and talking about, as well as designing of, effective and sustainable criminal justice reforms. To this end, we offer reflections on underlying conceptual and practical considerations relevant for both criminal justice policy talk and action.

Across the political spectrum in the United States, there is agreement that incarceration and punitive sanctions cannot be the sole solution to crime. After decades of criminal justice expansion, incarceration rates peaked between 2006 and 2008 and have dropped modestly, but consistently, ever since then (Gramlich, 2021 ). Calls to ratchet up criminal penalties to control crime, with some exceptions, are increasingly rare. Rather, where bitter partisanship divides conservatives and progressives on virtually every other issue, bipartisan support for criminal justice reform is commonplace. This support has yielded many changes in recent years: scaling back of mandatory sentencing laws, limiting sentencing enhancements, expanding access to non-prison alternatives for low-level drug and property crimes, reducing revocations of community supervision, and increasing early release options (Subramanian & Delaney, 2014 ). New laws passed to reduce incarceration have outpaced punitive legislation three-to-one (Beckett et al., 2016 , 2018 ). Rather than the rigid “law and order” narrative that characterized the dominant approach to crime and punishment since the Nixon administration, policymakers and advocates have found common ground in reform conversations focused on cost savings, evidence-based practice, and being “smart on crime.” A “new sensibility” prevails (Phelps, 2016 ).

Transforming extensive support for criminal justice reform into substantial reductions in justice-involved populations has proven more difficult, and irregular. While the number of individuals incarcerated across the nation has declined, the U.S. continues to have the highest incarceration rate in the world, with nearly 1.9 million people held in state and federal prisons, local jails, and detention centers (Sawyer & Wagner, 2022 ; Widra & Herring, 2021 ). Another 3.9 million people remain on probation or parole (Kaeble, 2021 ). And, not all jurisdictions have bought into this new sensibility: rural and suburban reliance on prisons has increased during this new era of justice reform (Kang-Brown & Subramanian, 2017 ). Despite extensive talk of reform, achieving actual results “is about as easy as bending granite” (Petersilia, 2016 :9).

How can we improve the effectiveness of criminal justice reform? At its core, a reform is an effort to ameliorate an undesirable condition, eliminate an identified problem, achieve a goal, or strengthen an existing (successful) policy. Scholarship yields real insights into effective programming and practice in response to a range of issues in criminal justice. Equally apparent, however, is the lack of criminological knowledge incorporated into the policymaking process. Thoughtful are proposals to improve the policy-relevance of criminological knowledge and increase communication between research and policy communities (e.g., Blomberg et al., 2016 ; Mears, 2022 ). But identifying what drives effective criminal justice reform is not so straightforward. For one, the goals of reform vary across stakeholders: Should reform reduce crime and victimization? Focus on recidivism? Increase community health and wellbeing? Ensure fairness in criminal justice procedure? Depending upon who is asked, the answer differs. Consensus on effective reform hinges on shared understandings of what the problem is and shared visions of what success looks like. Scholars of the policy process often distinguish “policy talk,” or how problems are defined and solutions are promoted, from “policy action,” or the design and adoption of policy solutions, to better understand the drivers of reform and its consequences. This distinction is relevant to criminal justice reform (Bartos & Kubrin, 2018 :2; Tyack & Cuban, 1995 ).

We argue that an effective approach to criminal justice reform—one that results in policy action that matches policy talk—requires clarity regarding normative views about the purpose of punishment, appreciation of practical realities involved in policymaking, and insight into how the two intersect. To this end, in this essay we offer critical reflections on underlying conceptual and practical considerations that bear on criminal justice policy talk and action.

Part I. Conceptual Considerations: Narratives of Crime and Criminal Justice

According to social constructionist theory, the creation of knowledge is rooted in interactions between individuals through common language and shared meanings in social contexts (Berger & Luckmann, 1966 ). Common language and shared meanings create ways of thinking, or narratives, that socially construct our reality and profoundly influence public definitions of groups, events, and social phenomena, including crime and criminal justice. As such, any productive conversation about reform must engage with society’s foundational narratives about crime and criminal justice, including views about the rationales for punishment.

I. Rationales of Punishment

What is criminal justice? What purpose does our criminal justice system serve? Answers to these questions are found in the theories, organization, and practices of criminal justice. A starting point for discovery is the fact that criminal justice is a system for the implementation of punishment (Cullen & Gilbert, 1982 ). This has not always been the case but today, punishment is largely meted out in our correctional system, or prisons and jails, which embody rationales for punishment including retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restoration. These rationales offer competing purposes and goals, and provide varying blueprints for how our criminal justice system should operate.

Where do these rationales come from? They derive, in part, from diverse understandings and explanations about the causes of crime. While many theories exist, a useful approach for thinking about crime and its causes is found in the two schools of criminological thought, the Classical and Positivist Schools of Criminology. These Schools reflect distinct ideological assumptions, identify competing rationales for punishment, and suggest unique social policies to address crime—all central to any discussion of criminal justice reform.

At its core, the Classical School sought to bring about reform of the criminal justice systems of eighteenth century Europe, which were characterized by such abuses as torture, presumption of guilt before trial, and arbitrary court procedures. Reformers of the Classical School, most notably Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, were influenced by social contract theorists of the Enlightenment, a cultural movement of intellectuals in late seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe that emphasized reason and individualism rather than tradition, along with equality. Central assumptions of the Classical School include that people are rational and possessed of free will, and thus can be held responsible for their actions; that humans are governed by the principle of utility and, as such, seek pleasure or happiness and avoid pain; and that, to prevent crime, punishments should be just severe enough such that the pain or unhappiness created by the punishment outweighs any pleasure or happiness derived from crime, thereby deterring would-be-offenders who will see that “crime does not pay.”

The guiding concept of the Positivist School was the application of the scientific method to study crime and criminals. In contrast to the Classical School’s focus on rational decision-making, the Positivist School adopted a deterministic viewpoint, which suggests that crime is determined by factors largely outside the control of individuals, be they biological (such as genetics), psychological (such as personality disorder), or sociological (such as poverty). Positivists also promote the idea of multiple-factor causation, or that crime is caused by a constellation of complex forces.

When it comes to how we might productively think about reform, a solid understanding of these schools is necessary because “…the unique sets of assumptions of two predominant schools of criminological thought give rise to vastly different explanations of and prescriptions for the problem of crime” (Cullen & Gilbert, 1982 :36). In other words, the two schools of thought translate into different strategies for policy. They generate rationales for punishment that offer competing narratives regarding how society should handle those who violate the law. These rationales for punishment motivate reformers, whether the aim is to “rehabilitate offenders” or “get tough on crime,” influencing policy and practice.

The earliest rationale for punishment is retribution. Consistent with an individual’s desire for revenge, the aim is that offenders experience an unpleasant consequence for violating the law. Essentially, criminals should get what they deserve. While other rationales focus on changing future behavior, retribution focuses on an individual’s past actions and implies they have rightfully “earned” their punishment. Punishment, then, expresses moral disapproval for the criminal act committed. Advocates of retribution are not concerned with controlling crime; rather, they are in the business of “doing justice.” The death penalty and sentencing guidelines, a system of recommended sentences based upon offense (e.g., level of seriousness) and offender (e.g., number and type of prior offenses) characteristics, reflect basic principles of retribution.

Among the most popular rationales for punishment is deterrence, which refers to the idea that those considering crime will refrain from doing so out of a fear of punishment, consistent with the Classical School. Deterrence emphasizes that punishing a person also sends a message to others about what they can expect if they, too, violate the law. Deterrence theory provides the basis for a particular kind of correctional system that punishes the crime, not the criminal. Punishments are to be fixed tightly to specific crimes so that offenders will soon learn that the state means business. The death penalty is an example of a policy based on deterrence (as is obvious, these rationales are not mutually exclusive) as are three-strikes laws, which significantly increase prison sentences of those convicted of a felony who have been previously convicted of two or more violent crimes or serious felonies.

Another rationale for punishment, incapacitation, has the goal of reducing crime by incarcerating offenders or otherwise restricting their liberty (e.g., community supervision reflected in probation, parole, electronic monitoring). Uninterested in why individuals commit crime in the first place, and with no illusion they can be reformed, the goal is to remove individuals from society during a period in which they are expected to reoffend. Habitual offender laws, which target repeat offenders or career criminals and provide for enhanced or exemplary punishments or other sanctions, reflect this rationale.

Embodied in the term “corrections” is the notion that those who commit crime can be reformed, that their behavior can be “corrected.” Rehabilitation refers to when individuals refrain from crime—not out of a fear of punishment—but because they are committed to law-abiding behavior. The goal, from this perspective, is to change the factors that lead individuals to commit crime in the first place, consistent with Positivist School arguments. Unless criminogenic risks are targeted for change, crime will continue. The correctional system should thus be arranged to deliver effective treatment; in other words, prisons must be therapeutic. Reflective of this rationale is the risk-need-responsibility (RNR) model, used to assess and rehabilitate offenders. Based on three principles, the risk principle asserts that criminal behavior can be reliably predicted and that treatment should focus on higher risk offenders, the need principle emphasizes the importance of criminogenic needs in the design and delivery of treatment and, the responsivity principle describes how the treatment should be provided.

When a crime takes place, harm occurs—to the victim, to the community, and even to the offender. Traditional rationales of punishment do not make rectifying this harm in a systematic way an important goal. Restoration, or restorative justice, a relatively newer rationale, aims to rectify harms and restore injured parties, perhaps by apologizing and providing restitution to the victim or by doing service for the community. In exchange, the person who violated the law is (ideally) forgiven and accepted back into the community as a full-fledged member. Programs associated with restorative justice are mediation and conflict-resolution programs, family group conferences, victim-impact panels, victim–offender mediation, circle sentencing, and community reparative boards.

II. Narratives of Criminal Justice

Rationales for punishment, thus, are many. But from where do they arise? They reflect and reinforce narratives of crime and criminal justice (Garland, 1991 ). Penological and philosophical narratives constitute two traditional ways of thinking about criminal justice. In the former, punishment is viewed essentially as a technique of crime control. This narrative views the criminal justice system in instrumental terms, as an institution whose overriding purpose is the management and control of crime. The focal question of interest is a technical one: What works to control crime? The latter, and second, narrative considers the philosophy of punishment. It examines the normative foundations on which the corrections system rests. Here, punishment is set up as a distinctively moral problem, asking how penal sanctions can be justified, what their proper objectives should be, and under what circumstances they can be reasonably imposed. The central question here is “What is just?”.

A third narrative, “the sociology of punishment,” conceptualizes punishment as a social institution—one that is distinctively focused on punishment’s social forms, functions, and significance in society (Garland, 1991 ). In this narrative, punishment, and the criminal justice system more broadly, is understood as a cultural and historical artifact that is concerned with the control of crime, but that is shaped by an ensemble of social forces and has significance and impacts that reach well beyond the population of criminals (pg. 119). A sociology of punishment narrative raises important questions: How do specific penal measures come into existence?; What social functions does punishment perform?; How do correctional institutions relate to other institutions?; How do they contribute to social order or to state power or to class domination or to cultural reproduction of society?; What are punishment’s unintended social effects, its functional failures, and its wider social costs? (pg. 119). Answers to these questions are found in the sociological perspectives on punishment, most notably those by Durkheim (punishment is a moral process, functioning to preserve shared values and normative conventions on which social life is based), Marx (punishment is a repressive instrument of class domination), Foucault (punishment is one part of an extensive network of “normalizing” practices in society that also includes school, family, and work), and Elias (punishment reflects a civilizing process that brings with it a move toward the privatization of disturbing events), among others.

Consistent with the sociology of punishment, Kraska and Brent ( 2011 ) offer additional narratives, which they call theoretical orientations, for organizing thoughts on the criminal justice system generally, and the control of crime specifically. They argue a useful way to think about theorizing is through the use of metaphors. Adopting this approach, they identify eight ways of thinking based on different metaphors: criminal justice as rational/legalism, as a system, as crime control vs. due process, as politics, as the social construction of reality, as a growth complex, as oppression, and as modernity. Several overlap with concepts and frameworks discussed earlier, while others, such as oppression, are increasingly applicable in current conversations about racial justice—something we take up in greater detail below. Consistent with Garland ( 1991 ), Kraska and Brent ( 2011 ) emphasize that each narrative tells a unique story about the history, growth, behaviors, motivations, functioning, and possible future of the criminal justice system. What unites these approaches is their shared interest in understanding punishment’s broader role in society.

There are still other narratives of crime and criminal justice, with implications for thinking about and conceptualizing reform. Packer ( 1964 ) identifies two theoretical models, each offering a different narrative, which reflect value systems competing for priority in the operation of the criminal process: the Crime Control Model and the Due Process Model. The Crime Control Model is based on the view that the most important function of the criminal process is the repression of criminal conduct. The failure of law enforcement to bring criminal conduct under tight control is seen as leading to a breakdown of public order and hence, to the disappearance of freedom. If laws go unenforced and offenders perceive there is a low chance of being apprehended and convicted, a disregard for legal controls will develop and law-abiding citizens are likely to experience increased victimization. In this way, the criminal justice process is a guarantor of social freedom.

To achieve this high purpose, the Crime Control Model requires attention be paid to the efficiency with which the system operates to screen suspects, determine guilt, and secure dispositions of individuals convicted of crime. There is thus a premium on speed and finality. Speed, in turn, depends on informality, while finality depends on minimizing occasions for challenge. As such, the process cannot be “cluttered up” with ceremonious rituals. In this way, informal operations are preferred to formal ones, and routine, stereotyped procedures are essential to handle large caseloads. Packer likens the Crime Control Model to an “assembly line or a conveyor belt down which moves an endless stream of cases, never stopping, carrying the cases to workers who stand at fixed stations and who perform on each case as it comes by the same small but essential operation that brings it one step closer to being a finished product, or, to exchange the metaphor for the reality, a closed file” (pg. 11). Evidence of this model today is witnessed in the extremely high rate of criminal cases disposed of via plea bargaining.

In contrast, the Due Process model calls for strict adherence to the Constitution and a focus on the accused and their Constitutional rights. Stressing the possibility of error, this model emphasizes the need to protect procedural rights even if this prevents the system from operating with maximum efficiency. There is thus a rejection of informal fact-finding processes and insistence on formal, adjudicative, adversary fact-finding processes. Packer likens the Due Process model to an obstacle course: “Each of its successive stages is designed to present formidable impediments to carrying the accused any further along in the process” (pg. 13). That all death penalty cases are subject to appeal, even when not desired by the offender, is evidence of the Due Process model in action.

Like the frameworks described earlier, the Crime Control and Due Process models offer a useful framework for discussing and debating the operation of a system whose day-to-day functioning involves a constant tension between competing demands of different sets of values. In the context of reform, these models encourage us to consider critical questions: On a spectrum between the extremes represented by the two models, where do our present practices fall? What appears to be the direction of foreseeable trends along this spectrum? Where on the spectrum should we aim to be? In essence, which value system is reflected most in criminal justice practices today, in which direction is the system headed, and where should it aim go in the future? Of course this framework, as all others reviewed here, assumes a tight fit between structure and function in the criminal courts yet some challenge this assumption arguing, instead, that criminal justice is best conceived of as a “loosely coupled system” (Hagan et al., 1979 :508; see also Bernard et al., 2005 ).

III. The Relevance of Crime and Criminal Justice Narratives for Thinking about Reform

When it comes to guiding researchers and policymakers to think productively about criminal justice reform, at first glance the discussion above may appear too academic and intellectual. But these narratives are more than simply fodder for discussion or topics of debate in the classroom or among academics. They govern how we think and talk about criminal justice and, by extension, how the system should be structured—and reformed.

An illustrative example of this is offered in Haney’s ( 1982 ) essay on psychological individualism. Adopting the premise that legal rules, doctrines, and procedures, including those of the criminal justice system, reflect basic assumptions about human nature, Haney’s thesis is that in nineteenth century America, an overarching narrative dominated legal and social conceptions of human behavior—that of psychological individualism. Psychological individualism incorporates three basic “facts” about human behavior: 1) individuals are the causal locus of behavior; 2) socially problematic and illegal behavior therefore arises from some defect in the individual persons who perform it; and, 3) such behavior can be changed or eliminated only by effecting changes in the nature or characteristics of those persons. Here, crime is rooted in the nature of criminals themselves be the source genetic, biological, or instinctual, ideas consistent with the Classical School of Criminology.

Haney reviews the rise and supremacy of psychological individualism in American society, discusses its entrenchment in legal responses to crime, and describes the implications of adopting such a viewpoint. Psychological individualism, he claims, diverted attention away from the structural and situational causes of crime (e.g., poverty, inequality, capitalism) and suggested the futility of social reforms that sought solutions to human problems through changes in larger social conditions: “The legal system, in harmony with widely held psychological theories about the causal primacy of individuals, acted to transform all structural problems into matters of moral depravity and personal shortcoming” (pg. 226–27). This process of transformation is nowhere clearer than in our historical commitment to prisons as the solution to the problem of crime, a commitment that continues today. Psychological individualism continues to underpin contemporary reform efforts. For example, approaches to reducing racial disparities in policing by eliminating officers’ unconscious racial bias through implicit-bias trainings shifts the focus away from organizational and institutional sources of disparate treatment.

In sum, the various narratives of crime and criminal justice constitute an essential starting point for any discussion of reform. They reflect vastly differing assumptions and, in many instances, value orientations or ideologies. The diversity of ways of thinking arguably contribute to conflict in society over contemporary criminal justice policy and proposed reforms. Appreciating that point is critical for identifying ways to create effective and sustainable reforms.

At the same time, these different ways of thinking do not exist in a vacuum. Rather, they collide with practical realities and constraints, which can and do shape how the criminal justice system functions, as well as determine the ability to reform it moving forward. For that reason, we turn to a discussion of how narratives about crime and criminal justice intersect with practical realities in the policy sphere, and suggest considerations that policymakers, researchers, and larger audiences should attend to when thinking about the future of reform.

Part II. Practical Considerations: Criminal Justice Reform through a Policy Lens

Criminal justice reform is no simple matter. Unsurprisingly, crime has long been considered an example of a “wicked” problem in public policy: ill-defined; with uncertainty about its causes and incomplete knowledge of effective solutions; complex arrangements of institutions responsible for addressing the problem; and, disagreement on foundational values (Head & Alford, 2015 ; Rittel & Webber, 1973 )—the latter apparent from the discussion above. Many note a large gap between criminological knowledge and policy (Mears, 2010 , 2022 ; Currie, 2007 ). While a movement to incorporate research evidence into the policy-making process has made some in-roads, we know less about how policymakers use this information to adopt and enact reforms. Put differently, more attention is paid to understanding the outcomes of crime-related policy while less is known about the contexts of, and inputs into, the process itself (Ismaili, 2006 ).

We identify practical considerations for policy-oriented researchers and policymakers in thinking through how to make criminal justice reform more effective. Specifically, we discuss practical considerations that reformers are likely to encounter related to problem formulation and framing (policy talk) and policy adoption (policy action), including issues of 1) variation and complexity in the criminal justice policy environment, 2) problem framing and policy content, 3) policy aims and outcomes, 4) equity considerations in policy design and evaluation; and, 5) policy process and policy change. These considerations are by no means exhaustive nor are they mutually exclusive. We offer these thoughts as starting points for discussion.

I. The Criminal Justice Policy Environment: Many Systems, Many Players

The criminal justice “system” in the United States is something of a misnomer. There is no single, centralized system. Instead, there are at least 51 separate systems—one for each of the 50 states, and the federal criminal justice system—each with different laws, policies, and administrative arrangements. Multiple agencies are responsible for various aspects of enforcing the law and administering justice. These agencies operate across multiple, overlapping jurisdictions. Some are at the municipal level (police), others are governed by counties (courts, prosecution, jails), and still others by state and federal agencies (prisons, probation, parole). Across these systems is an enormous amount of discretion regarding what crimes to prioritize for enforcement, whether and what charges to file, which sentences to mete out, what types of conditions, treatment, and programming to impose, and how to manage those under correctional authority. Scholars note the intrinsic problem with this wide-ranging independence: “criminal justice policy is made and put into action at the municipal, county, state, and national levels, and the thousands of organizations that comprise this criminal justice network are, for the most part, relatively autonomous both horizontally and vertically” (Lynch, 2011 :682; see also Bernard et al., 2005 ; Mears, 2017 ).

Criminal justice officials are not the only players. The “policy community” is made up of other governmental actors, including elected and appointed officials in the executive branches (governors and mayors) and legislative actors (council members, state, and federal representatives), responsible for formulating and executing legislation. Non-governmental actors play a role in the policy community as well, including private institutions and non-profit organizations, the media, interest and advocacy groups, academics and research institutions, impacted communities, along with the public at large (Ismaili, 2006 ).

Any consideration of criminal justice reform must attend to the structural features of the policy environment, including its institutional fragmentation. This feature creates both obstacles and opportunities for reform. Policy environments vary tremendously across states and local communities. Policies championed in Washington State are likely different than those championed in Georgia. But the policy community in Atlanta may be decidedly different than that of Macon, and policy changes can happen at hyper-local levels (Ouss & Stevenson, 2022 ). Differences between local jurisdictions can have national impacts: while urban jurisdictions have reduced their reliance on jails and prisons, rural and suburban incarceration rates continue to increase (Kang-Brown & Subramanian, 2017 ). Understanding key stakeholders, their political and policy interests, and their administrative authority to act is critical for determining how effective policy reforms can be pursued (Miller, 2008 ; Page, 2011 ). Prospects for, and possible targets of, reform thus necessitate a wide view of what constitutes “policy,” 1 looking not only to federal and state law but also to state and local administrative policies and practices (Reiter & Chesnut, 2018 ).

II. Policy Talk: Framing Problems, Shaping Possible Solutions

While agreement exists around the need for reform in the criminal justice system, this apparent unanimity belies disagreements over the proposed causes of the problem and feasible solutions (Gottschalk, 2015 ; Levin, 2018 ). This is evident in how reform is talked about in political and policy spheres, the types of reforms pursued, and which groups are its beneficiaries. Since the Great Recession of 2008, bipartisan reforms have often been couched in the language of fiscal conservatism, “right-sizing” the system, and being “smart on crime” (Beckett et al., 2016 ). These economic frames, focused on cost-efficiency, are effectively used to defend non-punitive policies including changes to the death penalty, marijuana legalization, and prison down-sizing (Aviram, 2015 ). However, cost-saving rationales are also used to advance punitive policies that shift the costs of punishment onto those who are being sanctioned, such as “pay-to-stay” jails and the multitude of fines and fees levied on justice-involved people for the cost of criminal justice administration. Economic justifications are not the only arguments that support the very same policy changes; fairness and proportionality, reducing prison overcrowding, enhancing public safety, and increasing rehabilitation are all deployed to defend various reforms (Beckett et al., 2016 ). Similarity in rhetorical justifications—cost-efficiency and fiscal responsibility, for example—can obscure deep divisions over how, and whom, to punish, divisions which stem from different narratives on the causes and consequences of crime.

The content of enacted policies also reveals underlying disagreements within justice reform. Clear distinctions are seen in how cases and people are categorized, and in who benefits from, or is burdened by, reform. For example, many states have lowered penalties and expanded rehabilitation alternatives for non-violent drug and other low-level offenses and technical violations on parole. Substantially fewer reforms target violent offenses. Decarceration efforts for non-violent offenders are often coupled with increasing penalties for others, including expansions of life imprisonment without parole for violent offenses (Beckett, 2018 ; Seeds, 2017 ). Reforms aimed only at individuals characterized as “non-violent, non-serious, and non-sexual” can reinforce social distinctions between people (and offenses) seen as deserving of lenient treatment from those who aren’t (Beckett et al., 2016 ).

The framing of social problems can shape the nature of solutions, although the impact of “framing” deserves greater attention in the criminal justice policy process (Rein & Schön, 1977 ; Schneider & Ingram,  1993 ). Policies can be understood in rational terms—for their application of technical solutions to resolve pre-defined problems—but also through “value-laden components, such as social constructions, rationales, and underlying assumptions” (Schneider & Sidney, 2006 :105). Specific frames (e.g., “crime doesn’t pay” or “don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time”) derive from underlying narratives (e.g., classical school, rational-actor models of behavior, and deterrence) that shape how crime and criminal justice are understood, as discussed in Part I. Framing involves how issues are portrayed and categorized, and even small changes to language or images used to frame an issue can impact policy preferences (Chong & Druckman, 2007 ). Public sentiments play an important role in the policy process, as policymakers and elected officials are responsive to public opinion about punishments (Pickett, 2019 ). Actors in the policy community—criminal justice bureaucrats, elected officials, interest groups, activists—compete to influence how a problem is framed, and thus addressed, by policymakers (Baumgartner & Jones, 2009 ; Benford & Snow, 2000 ). Policymakers, particularly elected officials, commonly work to frame issues in ways that support their political goals and resonate with their constituents (Gamson, 1992 ).

As noted at the outset, public support for harsh punishments has declined since the 1990’s and the salience of punitive “law and order” and “tough-on-crime” politics has fallen as well, as public support for rehabilitative approaches has increased (Thielo et al., 2016 ). How can researchers and policymakers capitalize on this shift in public sentiments? Research suggests that different issue frames, such as fairness, cost to taxpayers, ineffectiveness, and racial disparities, can increase (or reduce) public support for policies for nonviolent offenders (e.g., Dunbar, 2022 ; Gottlieb, 2017 ) and even for policies that target violent offenders (Pickett et al., 2022 ). Public sentiment and framing clearly matter for what problems gain attention, the types of policies that exist, and who ultimately benefits. These themes raise orienting questions: In a specific locale, what are the dominant understandings of the policy problem? How do these understandings map to sets of foundational assumptions about the purpose of intervention (e.g., deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation, restoration) and understandings of why people commit crime (e.g., Classical and Positivist approaches)? What types of issue frames are effective in garnering support for reforms? How does this support vary by policy context (urban, suburban, rural; federal, statewide, and local) and audience (elected officials, agency leadership, frontline workers, political constituents)?

III. Proposed Solutions and Expected Outcomes: Instrumental or Symbolic?

There are a variety of motivations in pursuing various policy solutions, along with different kinds of goals. Some reflect a desire to create tangible change for a specific problem while others are meant to mollify a growing concern. As such, one practical consideration related to policymaking and reform that bears discussion is the symbolic and instrumental nature of criminal justice policies.

Policies are considered to have an instrumental nature when they propose or result in changes to behaviors related to a public problem such as crime—that is, when they change behavior through direct influence on individuals’ actions (Sample et al., 2011 :29; see also Grattet & Jenness, 2008 ; Gusfield, 1963 ; Oliver & Marion, 2008 ). Symbolic policies, by contrast, are those that policymakers pass in order to be seen in a favorable light by the public (Jenness, 2004 ), particularly in the context of a “moral panic” (Barak, 1994 ; Ben-Yehuda, 1990 ). As Sample et al., ( 2011 :28) explain, symbolic policies provide three basic functions to society: 1) reassuring the public by helping reduce angst and demonstrate that something is being done about a problem; 2) solidifying moral boundaries by codifying public consensus of right and wrong; and 3) becoming a model for the diffusion of law to other states and the federal government. Symbolic policies are thus meant to demonstrate that policymakers understand, and are willing to address, a perceived problem, even when there is little expectation such policies will make a difference. In this way, symbolic policies are “values statements” and function largely ceremonially.

This distinction has a long history in criminological work, dating back to Gusfield’s ( 1963 ) analysis of the temperance movement. Suggesting that policymaking is often dramatic in nature and intended to shift ways of thinking, Gusfield ( 1963 ) argues that Prohibition and temperance were intended as symbolic, rather than instrumental, goals in that their impacts were felt in the action of prohibition itself rather than in its effect on citizens’ consumptive behaviors.

A modern-day example of symbolic policy is found in the sanctuary status movement as it relates to the policing of immigrants. Historically, immigration enforcement was left to the federal government however state and local law enforcement have faced increasing demands to become more involved in enforcing immigration laws in their communities. Policies enacted to create closer ties between local police departments and federal immigration officials reflect this new pattern of “devolution of immigration enforcement” (Provine et al., 2016 ). The Secure Communities Program, the Criminal Alien Program, and 287g agreements, in different but complementary ways, provide resources and training to help local officials enforce immigration statutes.

The devolution of immigration enforcement has faced widespread scrutiny (Kubrin, 2014 ). Many local jurisdictions have rejected devolution efforts by passing sanctuary policies, which expressly limit local officials’ involvement in the enforcement of federal immigration law. Among the most comprehensive is California’s SB54, passed in 2017, which made California a sanctuary state. The law prohibits local authorities from cooperating with federal immigration detainer requests, limits immigration agents’ access to local jails, and ends the use of jails to hold immigration detainees. At first glance, SB54 appears instrumental—its aim is to change the behavior of criminal justice officials in policing immigration. In practice, however, it appears that little behavioral change has taken place. Local police in California had already minimized their cooperation with Federal officials, well before SB54 was passed. In a broader sense then, “…the ‘sanctuary city’ name is largely a symbolic message of political support for immigrants without legal residency” and with SB54 specifically, “California [helped build] a wall of justice against President Trump’s xenophobic, racist and ignorant immigration policies,” (Ulloa, 2017 ).

Instrumental and symbolic goals are not an either-or proposition. Policies can be both, simultaneously easing public fears, demonstrating legislators’ desire to act, and having direct appreciable effects on people’s behaviors (Sample et al., 2011 ). This may occur even when not intended. At the same time, a policy’s effects or outcomes can turn out to be different from the original aim, creating a gap between “policy talk” and “policy action.” In their analysis of law enforcement action in response to the passage of hate crime legislation, Grattet and Jenness ( 2008 ) find that legislation thought to be largely symbolic in nature, in fact, ended up having instrumental effects through changes in enforcement practices, even as these effects were conditioned by the organizational context of enforcement agencies. Symbolic law can be rendered instrumental (under certain organizational and social conditions) and symbolic policies may evolve to have instrumental effects.

As another example, consider aims and outcomes of sex offender registration laws, which provide information about people convicted of sex offenses to local and federal authorities and the public, including the person’s name, current location, and past offenses. As Sample et al. ( 2011 ) suggest, these laws, often passed immediately following a highly publicized sex crime or in the midst of a moral panic, are largely cast as symbolic policy, serving to reassure the public through notification of sex offenders’ whereabouts so their behaviors can be monitored (Jenkins, 1998 ; Sample & Kadleck, 2008 ). While notification laws do not yield a discernable instrumental effect on offenders’ behavior (Tewksbury, 2002 ), this is not the sole goal of such policies. Rather, they are intended to encourage behavioral change among citizens (Sample et al., 2011 ), encouraging the public’s participation in their own safety by providing access to information. Do sex offender notification laws, in fact, alter citizen behavior, thereby boosting public safety?

To answer this question, Sample and her colleagues ( 2011 ) surveyed a random sample of Nebraska residents to determine whether they access sex offender information and to explore the reasons behind their desire, or reluctance, to do so. They find largely symbolic effects of registry legislation, with a majority of residents (over 69%) indicating they had never accessed the registry. These findings raise important questions about the symbolic vs. instrumental nature of criminal justice policies more broadly: “Should American citizens be content with largely symbolic crime policies and laws that demonstrate policy makers’ willingness to address problems, ease public fear, solidify public consensus of appropriate and inappropriate behavior, and provide a model of policies and laws for other states, or should they want more from crime control efforts? Is there a tipping point at which time the resources expended to adhere to symbolic laws and a point where the financial and human costs of the law become too high to continue to support legislation that is largely symbolic in nature? Who should make this judgment?” (pg. 46). These two examples, immigration-focused laws and sex offender laws, illustrate the dynamics involved in policymaking, particularly the relationship between proposed solutions and their expected outcomes. They reveal that instrumental and symbolic goals often compete for priority in the policy-making arena.

IV. Equity-Consciousness in Policy Formulation

As the criminal justice system exploded in size in the latter half of the twentieth century, its impacts have not spread equally across the population. Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities are disproportionately affected by policing, mass incarceration, and surveillance practices. At a moment of political momentum seeking to curb the excesses of the criminal justice system, careful attention must be paid not only to its overreach, but also to its racialized nature and inequitable impacts. Many evaluative criteria are used to weigh policies including efficiency, effectiveness, cost, political acceptability, and administrative feasibility, among others. One critical dimension is the extent to which a policy incorporates equity considerations into its design, or is ignorant about potential inequitable outcomes. While reducing racial disparities characterizes reform efforts of the past, these efforts often fail to yield meaningful impacts, and sometimes unintentionally exacerbate disparities. Equity analyses should be more formally centered in criminal justice policymaking.

Racial and ethnic disparities are a central feature of the U.S. criminal justice system. Decades of research reveals Black people, and to a lesser degree Latinos and Native Americans, are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system at all stages (Bales & Piquero, 2012 ; Hinton et al., 2018 ; Kutateladze et al., 2014 ; Menefee, 2018 ; Mitchell, 2005 ; Warren et al., 2012 ). These disparities have many sources: associations between blackness and criminality, and stereotypes of dangerousness (Muhammad, 2010 ); implicit racial bias (Spencer et al., 2016 ); residential and economic segregation that expose communities of color to environments that encourage criminal offending and greater police presence (Peterson & Krivo, 2010 ; Sharkey, 2013 ); and, punitive criminal justice policies that increase the certainty and severity of punishments, such as mandatory minimum sentences, life imprisonment, and habitual offender laws, for which people of color are disproportionately arrested and convicted (Raphael & Stoll, 2013 ; Schlesinger, 2011 ). Disparities in initial stages of criminal justice contact, at arrest or prosecution, can compound to generate disparate outcomes at later stages, such as conviction and sentencing, even where legal actors are committed to racial equality (Kutateladze et al., 2014 ). Disparities compound over time, too; having prior contact with the justice system may increase surveillance and the likelihood of being arrested, charged, detained pretrial, and sentenced to incarceration (Ahrens, 2020 ; Kurlychek & Johnson, 2019 ).

Perspectives on how to reduce disparities vary widely, and understanding how the benefits or burdens of a given policy change will be distributed across racial and ethnic groups is not always clear. Even well-intentioned reforms intended to increase fairness and alleviate disparities can fail to achieve intended impacts or unintentionally encourage inequity. For example, sentencing guidelines adopted in the 1970s to increase consistency and reduce inequitable outcomes across groups at sentencing alleviated, but did not eliminate, racial disparities (Johnson & Lee, 2013 ); popular “Ban the Box” legislation, aimed at reducing the stigma of a criminal record, may increase racial disparities in callbacks for job seekers of color (Agan & Starr, 2018 ; Raphael, 2021 ); and “risk assessments,” used widely in criminal justice decision-making, may unintentionally reproduce existing disparities by relying on information that is itself a product of racialized policing, prosecution, and sentencing (Eckhouse et al., 2019 ). Conversely, policies enacted without explicit consideration of equity effects may result in reductions of disparities: California’s Proposition 47, which reclassifies certain felony offenses to misdemeanors, reduced Black and Latino disparities in drug arrests, likelihood of conviction, and rates of jail incarceration relative to Whites (Mooney et al., 2018 ; Lofstrom et al., 2019 ; MacDonald & Raphael, 2020 ).

Understanding the potential equity implications of criminal justice reforms should be a key consideration for policymakers and applied researchers alike. However, an explicit focus on reducing racial disparities is often excluded from the policymaking process, seen as a secondary concern to other policy goals, or framed in ways that focus on race-neutral processes rather than race-equitable outcomes (Chouhy et al., 2021 ; Donnelly, 2017 ). But this need not be the case; examinations of how elements of a given policy (e.g., goals, target population, eligibility criteria) and proposed changes to procedure or practice might impact different groups can be incorporated into policy design and evaluation. As one example, racial equity impact statements (REIS), a policy tool that incorporates an empirical analysis of the projected impacts of a change in law, policy, or practice on racial and ethnic groups (Porter, 2021 ), are used in some states. Modeled after the now-routine environmental impact and fiscal impact statements, racial impact statements may be conducted in advance of a hearing or vote on any proposed change to policy, or can even be incorporated in the policy formulation stages (Chouhy et al., 2021 ; Mauer, 2007 ). Researchers, analysts, and policymakers should also examine potential differential effects of existing policies and pay special attention to how structural inequalities intersect with policy features to contribute to—and potentially mitigate—disparate impacts of justice reforms (Anderson et al., 2022 ; Mooney et al., 2022 ).

V. Putting It Together: Modeling the Policy Change Process

Approaches to crime and punishment do not change overnight. Policy change can be incremental or haphazard, and new innovations adopted by criminal justice systems often bear markers of earlier approaches. There exist multiple frameworks for understanding change and continuity in approaches to crime and punishment. The metaphor of a pendulum is often used to characterize changes to criminal justice policy, where policy regimes swing back and forth between punishment and leniency (Goodman et al., 2017 ). These changes are ushered along by macro-level shifts of economic, political, demographics, and cultural sensibilities (Garland, 2001 ).

Policy change is rarely predictable or mechanical (Smith & Larimer, 2017 ). Actors struggle over whom to punish and how, and changes in the relative resources, political position, and power among actors drive changes to policy and practice (Goodman et al., 2017 ). This conflict, which plays out at the level of politics and policymaking and is sometimes subsumed within agencies and day-to-day practices in the justice system, creates a landscape of contradictory policies, logics, and discourses. New policies and practices are “tinted” by (Dabney et al., 2017 ) or “braided” with older logics (Hutchinson, 2006 ), or “layered” onto existing practices (Rubin, 2016 ).

Public policy theory offers different, but complementary, insights into how policies come to be, particularly under complex conditions. One widely used framework in policy studies is the “multiple streams” framework (Kingdon, 1995 ). This model of the policymaking process focuses on policy choice and agenda setting, or the question of what leads policymakers to pay attention to one issue over others, and pursue one policy in lieu of others.

The policy process is heuristically outlined as a sequential set of steps or stages: problem identification, agenda setting, policy formulation, adoption or decision-making, implementation, and evaluation. However, real-world policymaking rarely conforms to this process (Smith & Larimer, 2017 ). In the multiple streams lens, the process is neither rational nor linear but is seen as “organized anarchy,” described by several features: 1) ambiguity over the definition of the problem, creating many possible solutions for the same circumstances and conditions; 2) limited time to make decisions and multiple issues vying for policymakers’ attention, leading to uncertain policy preferences; 3) a crowded policy community with shifting participation; and, 4) multiple agencies and organizations in the policy environment working on similar problems with little coordination or transparency (Herweg et al., 2018 ).

In this context, opportunity for change emerges when three, largely separate, “streams” of interactions intersect: problems , politics , and policies . First, in the “problem stream,” problems are defined as conditions that deviate from expectations and are seen by the public as requiring government intervention. Many such “problems” exist, but not all rise to the level of attention from policymakers. Conditions must be re-framed into problems requiring government attention. Several factors can usher this transformation. Changes in the scale of problem, such as increases or decreases in crime, can raise the attention of government actors. So-called “focusing events” (Birkland, 1997 ), or rare and unexpected events, such as shocking violent crime or a natural disaster (e.g., COVID-19 pandemic), can also serve this purpose. The murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, for instance, was a focusing event for changing the national conversation around police use of force into a problem requiring government intervention. Finally, feedback from existing programs or policies, particularly those that fail to achieve their goals or have unwanted effects, can reframe existing conditions as problems worthy of attention.

The “policy stream” is where solutions, or policy alternatives, are developed to address emerging problems. Solutions are generated both by “visible” participants in the stream, such as prominent elected officials, or by “hidden” actors, such as criminal justice bureaucrats, interest groups, academics, or consultants. Policy ideas float around in this stream until they are “coupled,” or linked, with specific problems. At any given time, policy ideas based in deterrence or incapacitation rationales, including increasing the harshness of penalties or the certainty of sanctions, and solutions based in rehabilitative rationales, such as providing treatment-oriented diversion or restorative justice programs, all co-exist in the policy stream. Not all policy alternatives are seen as viable and likely to reach the agenda; viable solutions are marked by concerns of feasibility, value acceptability, public support or tolerance, and financial viability.

Lastly, the “political stream” is governed by several elements, including changes to the national mood and changing composition of governments and legislatures as new politicians are elected and new government administrators appointed. This stream helps determine whether a problem will find a receptive venue (Smith & Larimer, 2017 ). For example, the election of a progressive prosecutor intent on changing status quo processing of cases through the justice system creates a viable political environment for new policies to be linked with problems. When the three streams converge, that is, when conditions become problems, a viable solution is identified, and a receptive political venue exists, a “policy window” opens and change is most likely. For Kingdon ( 2011 ), this is a moment of “opportunity for advocates of proposals to push their pet solutions, or to push attention to their special problems” (pg. 165).

Models of the policy change process, of which the multiple streams framework is just one, may be effectively applied to crime and justice policy spheres. Prior discussions on the ways of thinking about crime and criminal justice can be usefully integrated with models of the policy change process; narratives shape how various conditions are constructed as problems worthy of collective action and influence policy ideas and proposals available among policy communities. We encourage policymakers and policy-oriented researchers to examine criminal justice reform through policy process frameworks in order to better understand why some reforms succeed, and why others fail.

When it comes to the criminal justice system, one of the most commonly asked questions today is: How can we improve the effectiveness of reform efforts? Effective reform hinges on shared understandings of what the problem is as well as shared visions of what success looks like. Yet consensus is hard to come by, and scholars have long differentiated between “policy talk” and “policy action.” The aim of this essay has been to identify conceptual and practical considerations related to both policy talk and policy action in the context of criminal justice reform today.

On the conceptual side, we reviewed narratives that create society’s fundamental ways of thinking about or conceptualizing crime and criminal justice. These narratives reflect value orientations that underlie our criminal justice system and determine how it functions. On the practical side, we identified considerations for both policy-oriented researchers and policymakers in thinking through how to make criminal justice reform more effective. These practical considerations included variation and complexity in the criminal justice policy environment, problem framing and policy content, policy aims and outcomes, equity considerations in policy design and evaluation, and models of the policy change process.

These conceptual and practical considerations are by no means exhaustive, nor are they mutually-exclusive. Rather, they serve as starting points for productively thinking and talking about, as well as designing, effective and sustainable criminal justice reform. At the same time, they point to the need for continuous policy evaluation and monitoring—at all levels—as a way to increase accountability and effectiveness. Indeed, policy talk and policy action do not stop at the problem formation, agenda setting, or adoption stages of policymaking. Critical to understanding effective policy is implementation and evaluation, which create feedback into policy processes, and is something that should be addressed in future work on criminal justice reform.

Biographies

is Professor of Criminology, Law & Society and (by courtesy) Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. Among other topics, her research examines the impact of criminal justice reform on crime rates. Professor Kubrin has received several national awards including the Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology (for outstanding scholarly contributions to the discipline of criminology); the W.E.B. DuBois Award from the Western Society of Criminology (for significant contributions to racial and ethnic issues in the field of criminology); and the Paul Tappan Award from the Western Society of Criminology (for outstanding contributions to the field of criminology). In 2019, she was named a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology.

, M.P.P. is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society at the University of California, Irvine. Her research explores criminal justice reform, inequality, courts, and corrections. She has over 10 years of experience working with state and local governments to conduct applied research, program evaluation, and technical assistance in criminal justice and corrections. Her work has appeared in the peer-reviewed journals Justice Quarterly and PLOS One.

1 No single definition of public policy exists. Here we follow Smith and Larimer ( 2017 ) and define policy as any action by the government in response to a problem, including laws, rules, agency policies, programs, and day-to-day practices.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Charis E. Kubrin, Email: ude.icu@nirbukc .

Rebecca Tublitz, Email: ude.icu@ztilbutr .

• Agan, A. & Starr, S. (2018) Ban the box criminal records and racial discrimination: A field experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 133 (1), 191–235. 10.1093/qje/qjx028
• Ahrens DM. Retroactive legality: Marijuana convictions and restorative justice in an era of criminal justice reform. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 2020; 110 :379. [ Google Scholar ]
• Anderson CN, Wooldredge J, Cochran JC. Can “race-neutral” program eligibility requirements in criminal justice have disparate effects? An examination of race, ethnicity, and prison industry employment. Criminology & Public Policy. 2022; 21 :405–432. doi: 10.1111/1745-9133.12576. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Aviram H. Cheap on Crime: Recession-era Politics and the Transformation of American Punishment. University of California Press; 2015. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bales WD, Piquero AR. Racial/Ethnic differentials in sentencing to incarceration. Justice Quarterly. 2012; 29 :742–773. doi: 10.1080/07418825.2012.659674. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Barak G. Media, process, and the social construction of crime. Garland; 1994. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bartos BJ, Kubrin CE. Can we downsize our prisons and jails without compromising public safety? Findings from California's Prop 47. Criminology & Public Policy. 2018; 17 :693–715. doi: 10.1111/1745-9133.12378. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baumgartner FR, Jones BD. Agendas and instability in American politics. 2. University of Chicago Press; 2009. [ Google Scholar ]
• Beckett, K. (2018). The politics, promise, and peril of criminal justice reform in the context of mass incarceration. Annual Review of Criminology, 1 , 235–259.
• Beckett K, Reosti A, Knaphus E. The end of an era? Understanding the contradictions of criminal justice reform. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 2016; 664 :238–259. doi: 10.1177/0002716215598973. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Beckett, K., Beach, L., Knaphus, E., & Reosti, A. (2018). US criminal justice policy and practice in the twenty‐first century: Toward the end of mass incarceration?. Law & Policy, 40 (4), 321–345. 10.1111/lapo.12113
• Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 611–639.
• Ben-Yehuda N. The politics and morality of deviance. State University of New York Press; 1990. [ Google Scholar ]
• Berger PL, Luckmann T. The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology knowledge. Anchor Books; 1966. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bernard TJ, Paoline EA, III, Pare PP. General systems theory and criminal justice. Journal of Criminal Justice. 2005; 33 :203–211. doi: 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2005.02.001. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Birkland TA. After disaster: Agenda setting, public policy, and focusing events. Georgetown University Press; 1997. [ Google Scholar ]
• Blomberg T, Brancale J, Beaver K, Bales W. Advancing criminology & criminal justice policy. Routledge; 2016. [ Google Scholar ]
• Currie Elliott. Against marginality. Theoretical Criminology. 2007; 11 (2):175–190. doi: 10.1177/1362480607075846. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chong D, Druckman JN. Framing theory. Annual Review of Political Science. 2007; 10 :103–126. doi: 10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.072805.103054. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chouhy C, Swagar N, Brancale J, Noorman K, Siennick SE, Caswell J, Blomberg TG. Forecasting the racial and ethnic impacts of ‘race-neutral’ legislation through researcher and policymaker partnerships. American Journal of Criminal Justice. 2021 doi: 10.1007/s12103-021-09619-8. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cullen, F. T. & Gilbert, K. E. (1982). Criminal justice theories and ideologies. In Reaffirming rehabilitation (pp. 27–44). Andersen.
• Dabney DA, Page J, Topalli V. American bail and the tinting of criminal justice. Howard Journal of Crime and Justice. 2017; 56 :397–418. doi: 10.1111/hojo.12212. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Donnelly EA. The politics of racial disparity reform: Racial inequality and criminal justice policymaking in the states. Am J Crim Just. 2017; 42 :1–27. doi: 10.1007/s12103-016-9344-8. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dunbar, A. (2022). Arguing for criminal justice reform: Examining the effects of message framing on policy preferences. Justice Quarterly . 10.1080/07418825.2022.2038243
• Eckhouse L, Lum K, Conti-Cook C, Ciccolini J. Layers of bias: A unified approach for understanding problems with risk assessment. Criminal Justice and Behavior. 2019; 46 :185–209. doi: 10.1177/0093854818811379. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gamson WA. Talking politics. Cambridge University Press; 1992. [ Google Scholar ]
• Garland D. Sociological Perspectives on Punishment. Crime and Justice. 1991; 14 :115–165. doi: 10.1086/449185. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Garland D. The culture of control: Crime and social order in contemporary society. University of Chicago Press; 2001. [ Google Scholar ]
• Goodman P, Page J, Phelps M. Breaking the pendulum: The long struggle over criminal justice. Oxford University Press; 2017. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gottlieb A. The effect of message frames on public attitudes toward criminal justice reform for nonviolent offenses. Crime & Delinquency. 2017; 63 :636–656. doi: 10.1177/0011128716687758. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gottschalk M. Caught: The prison state and the lockdown of American politics. Princeton University Press; 2015. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gramlich J. America’s incarceration rate falls to lowest level since 1995. Pew Research Center; 2021. [ Google Scholar ]
• Grattet R, Jenness V. Transforming symbolic law into organizational action: Hate crime policy and law enforcement practice. Social Forces. 2008; 87 :501–527. doi: 10.1353/sof.0.0122. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gusfield JR. Symbolic crusade: Status politics and the American temperance movement. University of Illinois Press; 1963. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hagan J, Hewitt JD, Alwin DF. Ceremonial justice: Crime and punishment in a loosely coupled system. Social Forces. 1979; 58 :506–527. doi: 10.2307/2577603. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Haney C. Criminal justice and the nineteenth-century paradigm: The triumph of psychological individualism in the ‘Formative Era’ Law and Human Behavior. 1982; 6 :191–235. doi: 10.1007/BF01044295. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Head BW, Alford J. Wicked problems: Implications for public policy and management. Administration & Society. 2015; 47 :711–739. doi: 10.1177/0095399713481601. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Herweg, N., Zahariadis, N., & Zohlnhöfer, R. (2018). The Multiple streams framework: Foundations, refinements, and empirical applications. In Theories of the policy process (pp 17–53). Routledge.
• Hinton E, Henderson L, Reed C. An unjust burden: The disparate treatment of Black Americans in the criminal justice system. Vera Institute of Justice; 2018. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hutchinson S. Countering catastrophic criminology. Punishment & Society. 2006; 8 :443–467. doi: 10.1177/1462474506067567. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ismaili K. Contextualizing the criminal justice policy-making process. Criminal Justice Policy Review. 2006; 17 :255–269. doi: 10.1177/0887403405281559. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jenkins P. Moral panic: Changing concepts of the child molester in Modern America. Yale University Press; 1998. [ Google Scholar ]
• Jenness V. Explaining criminalization: From demography and status politics to globalization and modernization. Annual Review of Sociology. 2004; 30 :147–171. doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110515. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Johnson BD, Lee JG. Racial disparity under sentencing guidelines: A survey of recent research and emerging perspectives. Sociology Compass. 2013; 7 :503–514. doi: 10.1111/soc4.12046. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kaeble, D. (2021). Probation and parole in the United States, 2020. Bureau of Justice Statistics. U.S. Department of Justice.
• Kang-Brown J, Subramanian R. Out of sight: The growth of jails in rural America. Vera Institute of Justice; 2017. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kingdon, J. W. (2011[1995]). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies . Harper Collins.
• Kraska PB, Brent JJ. Theorizing criminal justice: Eight essential orientations. 2. Waveland Press; 2011. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kubrin CE. Secure or insecure communities?: Seven reasons to abandon the secure communities program. Criminology & Public Policy. 2014; 13 :323–338. doi: 10.1111/1745-9133.12086. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kurlychek MC, Johnson BD. Cumulative disadvantage in the American Criminal Justice System. Annual Review of Criminology. 2019; 2 :291–319. doi: 10.1146/annurev-criminol-011518-024815. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kutateladze BL, Andiloro NR, Johnson BD, Spohn CC. Cumulative disadvantage: Examining racial and ethnic disparity in prosecution and sentencing. Criminology. 2014; 52 :514–551. doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12047. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Levin B. The consensus myth in criminal justice reform. Michigan Law Review. 2018; 117 :259. doi: 10.36644/mlr.117.2.consensus. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lofstrom, M., Martin, B., & Raphael, S. (2019). The effect of sentencing reform on racial and ethnic disparities in involvement with the criminal justice system: The case of California's Proposition 47 (University of California, Working Paper).
• Lynch, M. (2011). Mass incarceration legal change and locale. Criminology & Public Policy , 10(3), 673–698. 10.1111/j.1745-9133.2011.00733.x
• MacDonald J, Raphael S. Effect of scaling back punishment on racial and ethnic disparities in criminal case outcomes. Criminology & Public Policy. 2020; 19 :1139–1164. doi: 10.1111/1745-9133.12495. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mauer M. Racial impact statements as a means of reducing unwarranted sentencing disparities. Ohio State Journal of Crime Law. 2007; 5 (19):33. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mears DP. American criminal justice policy: An evaluation approach to increasing accountability and effectiveness. Cambridge University Press; 2010. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mears DP. Out-of-control criminal justice: The systems improvement solution for more safety, justice, accountability, and efficiency. Cambridge University Press; 2017. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mears, D. P. (2022). Bridging the research-policy divide to advance science and policy: The 2022 Bruce Smith, Sr. award address to the academy of criminal justice sciences. Justice Evaluation Journal , 1–23.
• Menefee MR. The role of bail and pretrial detention in the reproduction of racial inequalities. Sociology Compass. 2018; 12 :e12576. doi: 10.1111/soc4.12576. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Miller LL. The perils of federalism: Race, poverty, and the politics of crime control. Oxford University Press; 2008. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mitchell O. A meta-analysis of race and sentencing research: Explaining the inconsistencies. Journal of Quantitative Criminology. 2005; 21 :439–466. doi: 10.1007/s10940-005-7362-7. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mooney AC, Giannella E, Glymour MM, Neilands TB, Morris MD, Tulsky J, Sudhinaraset M. Racial/ethnic disparities in arrests for drug possession after California proposition 47, 2011–2016. American Journal of Public Health. 2018; 108 :987–993. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304445. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mooney, A. C., Skog, A., & Lerman, A. E. (2022). Racial equity in eligibility for a clean slate under automatic criminal record relief laws. Law and Society Review, 56 (3). 10.1111/lasr.12625
• Muhammad, K. G. (2010). The condemnation of Blackness: Race, crime, and the making of modern urban America . Harvard University Press.
• Oliver WM, Marion NE. Political party platforms: Symbolic politics and criminal justice policy. Criminal Justice Policy Review. 2008; 19 :397–413. doi: 10.1177/0887403408318829. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ouss, A., & Stevenson, M. (2022). Does cash bail deter misconduct? Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3335138
• Packer H. Two models of the criminal process. University of Pennsylvania Law Review. 1964; 113 :1–68. doi: 10.2307/3310562. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Page J. The toughest beat: Politics, punishment, and the prison officers union in California. Oxford University Press; 2011. [ Google Scholar ]
• Petersilia J. Realigning corrections, California style. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 2016; 664 :8–13. doi: 10.1177/0002716215599932. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Peterson RD, Krivo LJ. Divergent social worlds: Neighborhood crime and the racial-spatial divide. Russell Sage Foundation; 2010. [ Google Scholar ]
• Phelps MS. Possibilities and contestation in twenty-first-century US criminal justice downsizing. Annual Review of Law and Social Science. 2016; 12 :153–170. doi: 10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-110615-085046. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pickett JT. Public opinion and criminal justice policy: Theory and research. Annual Review of Criminology. 2019; 2 :405–428. doi: 10.1146/annurev-criminol-011518-024826. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pickett JT, Ivanov S, Wozniak KH. Selling effective violence prevention policies to the public: A nationally representative framing experiment. Journal of Experimental Criminology. 2022; 18 :387–409. doi: 10.1007/s11292-020-09447-6. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Porter, N. (2021). Racial impact statements, sentencing project . Retrieved July 16 2022, from https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/racial-impact-statements/
• Provine DM, Varsanyi MW, Lewis PG, Decker SH. Policing immigrants: Local law enforcement on the front lines. University of Chicago Press; 2016. [ Google Scholar ]
• Raphael S. The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Ban the Box. Annual Review of Criminology. 2021; 4 (1):191–207. doi: 10.1146/annurev-criminol-061020-022137. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Raphael S, Stoll MA. Why are so many Americans in prison? Russell Sage Foundation; 2013. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rein M, Schön DA. Problem setting in policy research. In: Weiss CH, editor. Using social research in public policy making. Lexington Books; 1977. pp. 235–251. [ Google Scholar ]
• Reiter K, Chesnut K. Correctional autonomy and authority in the rise of mass incarceration. Annual Review of Law and Social Science. 2018; 14 :49–68. doi: 10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-101317-031009. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rittel, H., & Webber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4 (2), 155–169.
• Rubin AT. Penal change as penal layering: A case study of proto-prison adoption and capital punishment reduction, 1785–1822. Punishment and Society. 2016; 18 :420–441. doi: 10.1177/1462474516641376. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sample LL, Kadleck C. Sex offender laws: Legislators’ accounts of the need for policy. Criminal Justice Policy Review. 2008; 19 :40–62. doi: 10.1177/0887403407308292. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sample LL, Evans MK, Anderson AL. Sex offender community notification laws: Are their effects symbolic or instrumental in nature? Criminal Justice Policy Review. 2011; 22 :27–49. doi: 10.1177/0887403410373698. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sawyer, W., & Wagner, P. (2022). Mass incarceration: The whole pie 2022 . Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved August 28 2022, from https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html
• Schlesinger T. The failure of race neutral policies: How mandatory terms and sentencing enhancements contribute to mass racialized incarceration. Crime & Delinquency. 2011; 57 :56–81. doi: 10.1177/0011128708323629. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schneider, A. & Ingram, H. (1993). Social construction of target populations: Implications for politics and policy. American Political Science Review, 87 (2), 334–347. 10.2307/2939044
• Schneider A, Sidney M. What is next for policy design and social construction theory? The Policy Studies Journal. 2006; 37 :103–119. doi: 10.1111/j.1541-0072.2008.00298.x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Seeds C. Bifurcation nation: American penal policy in late mass incarceration. Punishment and Society. 2017; 19 :590–610. doi: 10.1177/1462474516673822. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sharkey P. Stuck in place: Urban neighborhoods and the end of progress toward racial equality. University of Chicago Press; 2013. [ Google Scholar ]
• Smith, K., & Larimer, C. (2017). The public policy theory primer (3rd Edition). Taylor & Francis.
• Spencer KB, Charbonneau AK, Glaser J. Implicit bias and policing. Social and personality. Psychology Compass. 2016; 10 :50–63. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12210. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Subramanian R, Delaney R. Playbook for change? States reconsider mandatory sentences. Vera Institute of Justice; 2014. [ Google Scholar ]
• Tewksbury R. Validity and utility of the Kentucky Sex Offender Registry. Federal Probation. 2002; 66 :21–26. [ Google Scholar ]
• Thielo AJ, Cullen FT, Cohen DM, Chouhy C. Rehabilitation in a red state: Public support for correctional reform in Texas. Criminology & Public Policy. 2016; 15 :137–170. doi: 10.1111/1745-9133.12182. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tyack DB, Cuban L. Tinkering toward Utopia: A century of public school reform. Harvard University Press; 1995. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ulloa, J. (2017). California becomes ‘sanctuary state’ in rebuke of Trump immigration policy. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from: https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-brown-california-sanctuary-state-bill-20171005-story.html
• Warren P, Chiricos T, Bales W. The imprisonment penalty for Young Black and Hispanic Males: A crime-specific analysis. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. 2012; 49 :56–80. doi: 10.1177/0022427810397945. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Widra. E., & Herring, T. (2021). States of incarceration: The global context 2021 . Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved July 26 2022, from https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2021.html

• Search Menu
• Advance Articles
• Collections
• Focus Collections
• Browse by cover
• High-Impact Research
• Author Guidelines
• Quick and Simple Author Support
• Focus Issues Call for Papers
• Submission Site
• Open Access Options
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Why Publish with Us?
• About Plant Physiology
• Editorial Board
• Advertising & Corporate Services
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

Photosynthetic capacity and assimilate transport of the lower canopy influence maize yield under high planting density.

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Yanyan Yan, Fengying Duan, Xia Li, Rulang Zhao, Peng Hou, Ming Zhao, Shaokun Li, Yonghong Wang, Tingbo Dai, Wenbin Zhou, Photosynthetic capacity and assimilate transport of the lower canopy influence maize yield under high planting density, Plant Physiology , 2024;, kiae204, https://doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiae204

• Permissions Icon Permissions

Photosynthesis is a major trait of interest for development of high-yield crop plants. However, little is known about the effects of high-density planting on photosynthetic responses at the whole-canopy level. Using the high-yielding maize ( Zea mays L.) cultivars ‘LY66’, ‘MC670’, and ‘JK968’, we here conducted a two-year field experiment to assess ear development in addition to leaf characteristics and photosynthetic parameters in each canopy layer at four planting densities. Increased planting density promoted high grain yield and population-scale biomass accumulation despite reduced per-plant productivity. MC670 had the strongest adaptability to high-density planting conditions. Physiological analysis showed that increased planting density primarily led to decreases in the single-leaf area above the ear for LY66 and MC670 and below the ear for JK968. Furthermore, high planting density decreased chlorophyll content and the photosynthetic rate due to decreased canopy transmission, leading to severe decreases in single-plant biomass accumulation in the lower canopy. Moreover, increased planting density improved pre-silking biomass transfer, especially in the lower canopy. Yield showed significant positive relationships with photosynthesis and biomass in the lower canopy, demonstrating the important contributions of these leaves to grain yield under dense planting conditions. Increased planting density led to retarded ear development as a consequence of reduced glucose and fructose contents in the ears, indicating reductions in sugar transport that were associated with limited sink organ development, reduced kernel number, and yield loss. Overall, these findings highlighted the photosynthetic capacities of the lower canopy as promising targets for improving maize yield under dense planting conditions.

Supplementary data

Email alerts, citing articles via.

• Recommend to Your Librarian
• Advertising & Corporate Services
• Awards & Funding
• Plant Science Today
• Plant Biology Meeting
• Meeting Management Services
• Plant Science Research Weekly
• Taproot: A Plantae Podcast

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1532-2548
• Print ISSN 0032-0889
• Copyright © 2024 American Society of Plant Biologists
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

• The Magazine
• City Journal
• Contributors
• Manhattan Institute
• Email Alerts

Trouble at the Fed

An investigation into Federal Reserve governor Lisa D. Cook’s academic record raises questions. 

Lisa D. Cook is one of the world’s most powerful economists. She taught economics at Harvard University and Michigan State University and served on the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers before being appointed, in 2022, to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, which controls the interest rates and money supply of the United States.

Despite her pedigree, questions have long persisted about her academic record. Her publication history is remarkably thin for a tenured professor, and her published work largely focuses on race activism rather than on rigorous, quantitative economics. Her nomination to the Fed required Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a tie-breaking vote; by contrast, her predecessor in the seat, Janet Yellen, now Treasury secretary, was confirmed unanimously.

The quality of her scholarship has also received criticism. Her most heralded work, 2014’s “ Violence and Economic Activity: Evidence from African American Patents, 1870 to 1940 ,” examined the number of patents by black inventors in the past, concluding that the number plummeted in 1900 because of lynchings and discrimination. Other researchers soon discovered that the reason for the sudden drop in 1900 was that one of the databases Cook relied on stopped collecting data in that year. The true number of black patents, one subsequent study found , might be as much as 70 times greater than Cook’s figure, effectively debunking the study’s premise. 

Cook also seems to have consistently inflated her own credentials. In 2022, investigative journalist Christopher Brunet pointed out that, despite billing herself as a macroeconomist, Cook had never published a peer-reviewed macroeconomics article and had misrepresented her publication history in her CV, claiming that she had published an article in the journal American Economic Review . In truth, the article was published in American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings , a less prestigious, non-peer-reviewed magazine.

An exclusive City Journal and Daily Wire investigation reveals additional facts that cast new doubt on Cook’s seriousness as a scholar. 

In a series of academic papers spanning more than a decade, Cook appears to have copied language from other scholars without proper quotation and duplicated her own work and that of coauthors in multiple academic journals without proper attribution. Both practices appear to violate Michigan State University’s own written academic standards.

We will review several examples which, taken together, establish a pattern of careless scholarship at best or, at worst, academic misconduct.

In a 2021 paper titled “The Antebellum Roots of Distinctively Black Names,” Cook copied-and-pasted verbatim language from Charles Calomiris and Jonathan Pritchett, without using quotation marks when describing their findings, as required. Here is the original passage from Calomiris and Pritchett:

During this time, New Orleans was the largest city in the South and the site of its largest slave market. Unlike states with a common law tradition, Louisiana treated slaves like real estate, and slave sales had to be recorded and notarized in order to establish title (Louisiana 1806, section 10). Today, the records of many of these slave sales may be found in the New Orleans Notarial Archives and the New Orleans Conveyance Office. Because of the availability of these records and the size of the market, New Orleans is the best source for data on slave sales within the United States.

Here is Cook’s paper, which, though it cites Calomiris and Pritchett, lifts their language verbatim, which we have marked in italics, substituting only the word “slaves” with the politically correct phrase “the enslaved”:

Unlike states with a common law tradition, Louisiana treated  the enslaved  like real estate, and slave sales had to be recorded and notarized in order to establish title (Louisiana 1806 section 10). Today the records of many of these slave sales may be found in the New Orleans Notarial Archives and the New Orleans Conveyance Office. Because of the availability of these records and the size of the market, New Orleans is the best source for data on slave sales within the United States.  [ . . . ] During this time New Orleans was the largest city in the South and the site of its largest slave market.

She does something similar in her October 2021 paper, “Closing the Innovation Gap In Pink and Black,” which, despite significant government subsidies and years spent on it by Cook, summarized the work of researchers Charles Becker, Cecilia Elena Rouse, and Mingyu Chen by copying roughly 70 words without quotes.

This appears to be a violation of the standards in Michigan State University’s guidebook, which states that authors must paraphrase or add direct quotations to verbatim passages. “It is your responsibility to make certain that you understand the difference between quoting and paraphrasing, as well as the proper way to cite and delineate quoted material,” the guidebook reads.

In multiple papers, Cook also appears to have copied language from her own prior papers, or those of coauthors, without proper attribution. 

In a 2018 paper , “Rural Segregation and Racial Violence,” Cook appears as the lead author, with scholars Trevon Logan and John Parman as coauthors. But this paper simply duplicates word-for-word much of Logan and Parman’s prior work without Cook. For example, the year prior, Logan and Parman published an original paper , with the following language: 

The 1880 census comes after the Civil War and before the nation moved to Jim Crow. For example, at the time of the 1880 census, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which guaranteed equal protection in public accommodation, was still in place although not necessarily enforced. The 1940 census, however, depicts residential patterns after the rise of Jim Crow, the Great Migration, and the influx of European immigrants. Importantly, the 1940 census comes largely before the rise of significant suburbanization seen in the post-war years. It is this period from the late-nineteenth century to 1940 that Cutler, Glaeser and Vigdor (1999) cite as the rise of the American ghetto. While urban segregation as measured by isolation and dissimilarity was generally rising, the segregation patterns across cities tended to persist over time, with the most segregated cities at the turn of the century also being the most segregated cities at the end of the century. The complete census returns for 1880 and 1940 allow us to see whether our neighbor-based segregation index shows a similar rise in urban segregation and whether a comparable change in segregation occurred in rural areas.  [ . . . ] Table 3 shows the variation in our neighbor-based segregation index by census region in both 1880 and 1940. All statistics are weighted by the number of black households in the county so they should be interpreted as representing the level of segregation experienced by the average black household. Counties are divided between rural and urban to distinguish between the segregation patterns described by Cutler, Glaeser, and Vigdor specific to cities and more general patterns affecting the rest of the population. As noted earlier, we designate a county as urban if more than one-quarter of the households from that county live in an urban area and rural if less than one-quarter of the households live in an urban area. 

Cook duplicates long passages verbatim, marked here in italics, without quotation or proper attribution: 

The 1880 census comes after the Civil War and before the nation moved systematically to Jim Crow. For example, at the time of the 1880 census, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which guaranteed equal protection in public accommodation, was still in place. The 1940 census, however, depicts residential patterns after the rise of Jim Crow, the Great Migration, and the influx of European immigrants. Importantly, the 1940 census comes largely before the rise of significant suburbanization seen in the postwar years. It is this period from the late-19th century to 1940 that Cutler, Glaeser, and Vigdor (1999) cite as the rise of the American ghetto . While urban segregation as measured by isolation and dissimilarity was generally rising , the segregation patterns across cities tended to persist over time, with the most segregated cities at the turn of the century also being the most segregated cities at the end of the century. The complete census returns for 1880 and 1940 and the Logan-Parman measure provide an opportunity to test whether a comparable change in segregation occurred in rural areas. [ . . . ] Figure 3 shows the variation in our segregation index from 1880 through 1940 . All statistics are weighted by the number of black households in the county and should therefore be interpreted as representing the level of segregation experienced by the average black household. Counties are divided between rural and urban to distinguish between the segregation patterns described by Cutler, Glaeser, and Vigdor (1999) that were specific to cities and more general patterns affecting the rest of the population . We follow Logan and Parman (2017) and define a county as urban if more than one-quarter of the households from that county live in an urban area and rural if less than one-quarter of the households live in an urban area.

Complicating things further, that 2018 paper by the same three authors also recycled, without proper attribution, long passages of identical language from an article they published in another journal, “ Racial Segregation and Southern Lynching .” Here is a passage from the earlier paper:

As such, the predicted correlation of residential segregation in political theories is indeterminate. The effect of segregation could lead to more racial violence or less. The direction of the effect depends on how whites view the potential outcomes of black political advancement. Most narrative histories suggest that whites held great apprehension of black political advances irrespective of their interaction with blacks. At the same time, whether segregation mediated or enhanced any of those sentiments is unknown, particularly because rural segregation has not received sustained attention in the literature. [ . . . ] The Logan-Parman measure is an intuitive approach to residential segregation. They assert that the location of households in adjacent units can be used to measure the degree of integration or segregation in a community, similar to Schelling’s (1971) classic model of household alignment. Areas that are well integrated will have a greater likelihood of opposite race neighbors that corresponds to the underlying racial proportion of households in the area. The opposite is also true—segregated areas will have a lower likelihood of opposite race neighbors than the racial proportions would predict. The measure relies on the individual-level data available in federal census records. With the 100% sample of the federal census available through the Minnesota Population Center’s Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), it is possible to identify the races of next-door neighbors. Census enumerators went door to door to record households, meaning that next-door neighbors are adjacent to one another on the census manuscript page. The number of black households with white neighbors in a county can therefore be calculated by looking at the order and races of all household heads on the census manuscript pages. The measure is based on comparing this number of black households in a community with white neighbors to the number expected under complete integration and under complete segregation.

And here is a passage from the second paper, with verbatim language in italics. The minor word and punctuation substitutions, which are as trivial as replacing an em dash with a colon, suggest a certain measure of deliberate modification of the copied text:

The predicted correlation of residential segregation in political theories , in contrast, is indeterminate. The effect of segregation could lead to more racial violence or less. The direction of the effect depends on how whites view the potential outcomes of black political advancement. Most narrative histories suggest that whites held great apprehension of black political advances irrespective of their interaction with blacks. At the same time, whether segregation mediated or enhanced any of those sentiments is unknown, particularly because rural segregation has not received sustained attention in the literature. [ . . . ] They assert that the location of households in adjacent units can be used to measure the degree of integration or segregation in a community, similar to Schelling’s (1971) classic model of household alignment. Areas that are well integrated will have a greater likelihood of different- race neighbors that corresponds to the underlying racial proportion of households in the area. The opposite is also true : segregated areas will have a lower likelihood of different- race neighbors than the racial proportions would predict. The measure relies on the individual-level data available in federal census records. With the 100 percent sample of the 1880 federal census available through the Minnesota Population Center’s Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) and the 100 percent samples of the 1900 through 1940 censuses hosted by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), it is possible to identify the races of next-door neighbors. Census enumerators went door to door to record households, meaning that next-door neighbors are adjacent to one another on the census manuscript page. The number of black households with white neighbors in a county can , therefore , be calculated by looking at the order and races of all household heads on the census manuscript pages. The measure is based on comparing the actual number of black households in a community with white neighbors to the number expected under complete integration and under complete segregation.

Finally, Cook recycled substantial portions of at least three passages from her own 2011 paper, “ Inventing social capital: Evidence from African American inventors, 1843–1930 ,” in the 2014 paper on patents that helped propel her to academic stardom.

When reached for comment, a Federal Reserve spokesman pointed to Cook’s prior testimony to Congress, in which she stated: “I certainly am proud of my academic background.”

Does the deliberate recycling of old material, including material from coauthors, constitute academic misconduct? It is true that journalists, for example, often adapt previous reporting into a compilation or a book. But the standard in academia is more rigorous. According to the Michigan State University guidebook, republishing identical material across multiple journals, without proper attribution, appears to be a violation of the rule against “self-plagiarism.” The standard is that scholars cannot use copied language “regardless of whether [they] are or are not the author of the source of the copied text or idea.”

What should the consequences be for this kind of academic misconduct? At Michigan State, administrators have warned students that “plagiarism is considered fraud and has potentially harsh consequences including loss of job, loss of reputation, and the assignation of reduced or failing grade in a course.” Certainly, for an esteemed professor and now a governor of the Federal Reserve, that standard should be the bare minimum.

Cook is no stranger to mobilizing such punishments against others. In 2020, she participated in the attempted defenestration of esteemed University of Chicago economist Harald Uhlig for the crime of publicly opposing the “defund the police” movement. She called for Uhlig’s removal from the classroom , claiming that he had made an insensitive remark about Martin Luther King, Jr. (The university closed its own inquiry after concluding that there was “not a basis” to investigate further.) Uhlig, in a 2022 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal , asked the pertinent question: Under the leadership of an ideologue such as Lisa Cook, would the Fed continue to pursue its mandate, or succumb to left-wing activism?

Time will tell if the gears of justice turn against Lisa Cook, or if repeated academic misconduct, defended by some as mere sloppiness or isolated mistakes, is fast becoming an acceptable part of the academic order—as long as the alleged author of that behavior is favored by the powerful.

Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal , and the author of America’s Cultural Revolution . Luke Rosiak is an investigative reporter for The Daily Wire and author of Race to the Bottom: Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying American Public Education .

Photo by Brooks Kraft/ Getty Images

City Journal is a publication of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (MI), a leading free-market think tank. Are you interested in supporting the magazine? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in support of MI and City Journal are fully tax-deductible as provided by law (EIN #13-2912529).

Further Reading

Copyright © 2024 Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

• Eye on the News
• From the Magazine
• Books and Culture
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use

EIN #13-2912529

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Working with sources

What Is a Scholarly Source? | Beginner's Guide

Scholarly sources (aka academic sources) are written by experts in their field. They’re supported by evidence and informed by up-to-date research.

As a student, you should aim to use scholarly sources in your research and to follow the same kinds of scholarly conventions in your own writing. This means knowing how to:

• Distinguish between different types of sources
• Find sources for your research
• Evaluate the relevance and credibility of sources
• Integrate sources into your text and cite them correctly

Table of contents

What is a scholarly source, types of sources, how do i find scholarly sources, how do i evaluate sources, integrating and citing sources, frequently asked questions about scholarly sources.

Scholarly sources are written by experts and are intended to advance knowledge in a specific field of study.

They serve a range of purposes, including:

• Communicating original research
• Contributing to the theoretical foundations of a discipline
• Summarizing current research trends

Scholarly sources use formal and technical language, as they’re written for readers with knowledge of the discipline.

They should:

• Aim to educate or inform
• Support their arguments and conclusions with evidence
• Be attributed to a specific author or authors, also indicating their academic qualifications

They should not:

• Present a biased perspective
• Contain spelling or grammatical errors
• Rely on appeals to emotion

Scholarly sources should be well structured and contain information on the methodology used in the research they describe. They may also include a literature review . They contain formal citations wherever information from other sources is referenced.

Scholarly books are typically published by a university press or academic publisher. Scholarly articles are typically longer than popular articles. They are published in discipline-specific journals and are typically peer-reviewed.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing - try for free!

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Try for free

Various types of sources are used in academic writing. Different sources may become relevant at different stages of the research process .

The sources commonly used in academic writing include:

• Academic journals
• Scholarly books
• Encyclopedias

Depending on your research topic and approach, each of these sources falls into one of three categories:

• Primary sources provide direct evidence about your research topic (e.g., a diary entry from a historical figure).
• Secondary sources interpret or provide commentary on primary sources (e.g., an academic book).
• Tertiary sources summarize or consolidate primary and secondary sources but don’t provide original insights (e.g., a bibliography).

Tertiary sources are not typically cited in academic writing , but they can be used to learn more about a topic.

If you’re unsure what kinds of sources are relevant to your topic, consult your instructor.

In practically any kind of research, you’ll have to find sources to engage with. How you find your sources will depend on what you’re looking for. The main places to look for sources are:

• Research databases: A good place to start is with Google Scholar . Also consult the website of your institution’s library to see what academic databases they provide access to.
• Your institution’s library: Consult your library’s catalog to find relevant sources. Browse the shelves of relevant sections. You can also consult the bibliographies of any relevant sources to find further useful sources.

When using academic databases or search engines, you can use Boolean operators to include or exclude keywords to refine your results.

Knowing how to evaluate sources is one of the most important information literacy skills. It helps you ensure that the sources you use are scholarly, credible , and relevant to your topic, and that they contain coherent and informed arguments.

• Evaluate the credibility of a source using the CRAAP test or lateral reading . These help you assess a source’s currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose.
• Evaluate a source’s relevance by analyzing how the author engages with key debates, major publications or scholars, gaps in existing knowledge, and research trends.
• Evaluate a source’s arguments by analyzing the relationship between a source’s claims and the evidence used to support them.

When you are evaluating sources, it’s important to think critically and to be aware of your own biases.

Scribbr Citation Checker New

The AI-powered Citation Checker helps you avoid common mistakes such as:

• Missing commas and periods
• Incorrect usage of “et al.”
• Ampersands (&) in narrative citations
• Missing reference entries

In addition to finding and evaluating sources, you should also know how to integrate sources into your writing. You can use signal phrases to introduce sources in your text, and then integrate them by:

• Quoting : This means including the exact words of another source in your paper. The quoted text must be enclosed in quotation marks or (for longer quotes) presented as a block quote . Quote a source when the meaning is difficult to convey in different words or when you want to analyze the language itself.
• Paraphrasing : This means putting another person’s ideas into your own words. It allows you to integrate sources more smoothly into your text, maintaining a consistent voice. It also shows that you have understood the meaning of the source. You can do this by yourself or use a paraphrasing tool .
• Summarizing : This means giving an overview of the essential points of a source. Summaries should be much shorter than the original text. You should describe the key points in your own words and not quote from the original text.

You must cite a source whenever you reference someone else’s work. This gives credit to the author. Failing to cite your sources is regarded as plagiarism and could get you in trouble.

The most common citation styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago style . Each citation style has specific rules for formatting citations.

The easiest way to create accurate citations is to use the free Scribbr Citation Generator . Simply enter the source title, URL, or DOI , and the generator creates your citation automatically.

Generate accurate citations with Scribbr

Scholarly sources are written by experts in their field and are typically subjected to peer review . They are intended for a scholarly audience, include a full bibliography, and use scholarly or technical language. For these reasons, they are typically considered credible sources .

Popular sources like magazines and news articles are typically written by journalists. These types of sources usually don’t include a bibliography and are written for a popular, rather than academic, audience. They are not always reliable and may be written from a biased or uninformed perspective, but they can still be cited in some contexts.

There are many types of sources commonly used in research. These include:

• Journal articles

You’ll likely use a variety of these sources throughout the research process , and the kinds of sources you use will depend on your research topic and goals.

It is important to find credible sources and use those that you can be sure are sufficiently scholarly .

• Consult your institute’s library to find out what books, journals, research databases, and other types of sources they provide access to.
• Look for books published by respected academic publishing houses and university presses, as these are typically considered trustworthy sources.
• Look for journals that use a peer review process. This means that experts in the field assess the quality and credibility of an article before it is published.

A credible source should pass the CRAAP test  and follow these guidelines:

• The information should be up to date and current.
• The author and publication should be a trusted authority on the subject you are researching.
• The sources the author cited should be easy to find, clear, and unbiased.
• For a web source, the URL and layout should signify that it is trustworthy.

When searching for sources in databases, think of specific keywords that are relevant to your topic , and consider variations on them or synonyms that might be relevant.

Once you have a clear idea of your research parameters and key terms, choose a database that is relevant to your research (e.g., Medline, JSTOR, Project MUSE).

Find out if the database has a “subject search” option. This can help to refine your search. Use Boolean operators to combine your keywords, exclude specific search terms, and search exact phrases to find the most relevant sources.

Is this article helpful?

Other students also liked.

• Types of Sources Explained | Examples & Tips
• How to Find Sources | Scholarly Articles, Books, Etc.
• Evaluating Sources | Methods & Examples

More interesting articles

• Applying the CRAAP Test & Evaluating Sources
• Boolean Operators | Quick Guide, Examples & Tips
• How to Block Quote | Length, Format and Examples
• How to Integrate Sources | Explanation & Examples
• How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples
• How to Quote | Citing Quotes in APA, MLA & Chicago
• How to Write a Summary | Guide & Examples
• Primary vs. Secondary Sources | Difference & Examples
• Signal Phrases | Definition, Explanation & Examples
• Student Guide: Information Literacy | Meaning & Examples
• Synthesizing Sources | Examples & Synthesis Matrix
• Tertiary Sources Explained | Quick Guide & Examples
• What Are Credible Sources & How to Spot Them | Examples
• What Is Critical Thinking? | Definition & Examples

Unlimited Academic AI-Proofreading

✔ Document error-free in 5minutes ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts

• Preferences
• Free Speech
• Ctrl-Alt-Speech
• Support Techdirt

How Copyright May Destroy Our Access To The World’s Academic Knowledge

from the we're-destroying-our-knowledge dept

The shift from analogue to digital has had a massive impact on most aspects of life. One area where that shift has the potential for huge benefits is in the world of academic publishing. Academic papers are costly to publish and distribute on paper, but in a digital format they can be shared globally for almost no cost. That’s one of the driving forces behind the  open access  movement. But as Walled Culture has reported, resistance from the traditional publishing world has slowed the shift to open access, and undercut the benefits that could flow from it.

That in itself is bad news, but new research from Martin Paul Eve ( available as open access ) shows that the way the shift to digital has been managed by publishers brings with it a new problem. For all their flaws, analogue publications have the great virtue that they are durable: once a library has a copy, it is likely to be available for decades, if not centuries. Digital scholarly articles come with no such guarantee. The Internet is constantly in flux, with many publishers and sites closing down each year, often without notice. That’s a problem when sites holding archival copies of scholarly articles vanish, making it harder, perhaps impossible, to access important papers. Eve explored whether publishers were placing copies of the articles they published in key archives. Ideally, digital papers would be available in multiple archives to ensure resilience, but the reality is that very few publishers did this. Ars Technica has  a good summary of Eve’s results :

When Eve broke down the results by publisher, less than 1 percent of the 204 publishers had put the majority of their content into multiple archives. (The cutoff was 75 percent of their content in three or more archives.) Fewer than 10 percent had put more than half their content in at least two archives. And a full third seemed to be doing no organized archiving at all. At the individual publication level, under 60 percent were present in at least one archive, and over a quarter didn’t appear to be in any of the archives at all. (Another 14 percent were published too recently to have been archived or had incomplete records.)

This very patchy coverage is concerning, for reasons outlined by Ars Technica:

The risk here is that, ultimately, we may lose access to some academic research. As Eve phrases it, knowledge gets expanded because we’re able to build upon a foundation of facts that we can trace back through a chain of references. If we start losing those links, then the foundation gets shakier. Archiving comes with its own set of challenges: It costs money, it has to be organized, consistent means of accessing the archived material need to be established, and so on.

Given the importance of ensuring the long-term availability of academic research the manifest failure of most publishers to guarantee that by putting articles in multiple archives is troubling. What makes things worse is that there is an easy way to improve the resilience of the academic research system. If all papers could be shared freely, there could be many new archives located around the world holding the contents of all academic journals. One or two such archives already exist, for example the well-established  Sci-Hub , and the more recent  Anna’s Archive , which currently claims to hold around 100,000,000 papers.

Despite the evident value to the academic world and society in general of such multiple, independent backups, traditional publishing houses are pursuing them in the courts, in an attempt to shut them down. It seems that preserving their intellectual monopoly is more important to publishers than preserving the world’s accumulated academic knowledge. It’s a further sign of copyright’s twisted values that those archives offering solutions to the failure of publishers to fulfil their obligations to learning are regarded not as public benefactors, but as public enemies.

Follow me @glynmoody on  Mastodon  and on  Bluesky . Originally posted to Walled Culture .

Filed Under: academic knowledge , archives , copyright , libraries

• Court Rules For Paramount In Lawsuit Over 'Top Gun' Movies
• An Only Slightly Modest Proposal: If AI Companies Want More Content, They Should Fund Reporters, And Lots Of Them
• Hollywood Believes The Time Is Ripe To Bring Back SOPA
• AI-Powered Fake Copyright Trolling Threat Letters Really Just An SEO Scam
• One YouTuber's Quest For Political Action To Preserve Old Video Games

Comments on “How Copyright May Destroy Our Access To The World’s Academic Knowledge”

• Filter comments in by Time
• Filter comments as Threaded
• Filter only comments rated Insightful
• Filter only comments rated funny LOL
• Filter only comments that are Unread

Conference papers are even worse

I’ve noticed a real issue with academic conference papers. Journals at least pretend to have a plan for the future, but conferences are a lot more uneven. A lot of conference websites aren’t kept up forever.

Some of the papers I worked on don’t exist on conference websites anymore; there’s at least one paper from several years ago that I don’t have a copy of. I really wish EasyChair would partner with arXiv or something.

Given how much research is verified as repeatable (IE “not much”), there can be serious questions about the validity of a lot of papers, especially (but not exclusively) in the soft sciences.

One can only hope that these archives being talked about have robust search mechanisms. Searching through 100 million research papers, to find the one that discussed the precise thing you wanted to know about, is not a thing to be done by hand within a lifetime.

… and that’s just so far. Consider what the situation will be in another 70 years!

Consider what the situation will be in another 70 years!

Would that be the 70 years after life?

Corporations have decided that EVERYTHING should be made into a subscription service. Time to start opting out. If we all revert to shopping locally and paying in cash, it will monkey wrench their plan. Also, build your own archives instead of paying for (limited) access to theirs, and stop trading your data for nominal discounts. We can control SOME of what we do, if we plan properly.

There’s a related issue that’s been bugging me for over a decade now, something mostly only concerning to footnote-geeks though–references/citations that rely more and more on URLs that won’t be around all that long. Yeah, who reads books anymore? Who looks at footnotes? which for a long time have morphed into cheaper but really irksome endnotes? Maybe I’m too fucking old but it’s damn near tragic that this is happening.

This is a big deal. Citations/footnotes/references are the glue that holds this knowledge together. And unfortunately it’s weak glue (in many cases) because of its reliance on transient domains, hosts, systems, and organizations. What we need is a method that’s impervious to those kinds of changes, so that we can decouple the ideas of “referenced paper” and “URL”.

Easy. Just do what I do and type the title of the paper into a search engine. In many cases, even where the paper was published by a company charging for access, I’ve found the prepublished version on a university website.

If your objective is to ensure access to science then yes, this is a problem, but when an archive or publishing house dies what a capitalist will do is look at this and say that it’s a future opportunity to charge both copyright licensing fees and additional publishing fees. This is something that could be extremely profitable for the ruling class, thus there is no incentive for the government to fix it.

This is a failure of academic libraries and librarians

This could all have been nipped in the bud 2 decades ago, but academic librarians were too excited by the prospect of instant, broad access to demand sensible contracts that provided either a hard copy of all journals, and/or a backup download of all articles.

In fact, if they would work together, they could do this right now. Meanwhile, access from Elsevier and other bullshit middlemen increases WAY faster than inflation, so that an academic library that doesn’t get a 10% increase in their collections budget (and none of them do) are in effect getting a budget cut. This has also been true for decades.

Sadly, librarians are not forward-thinking. I know, because I was one of the few voices pushing for more-than-temporary access to journals 2 decades ago, and the profession as a whole didn’t care.

/former librarian

This is a failure of US government and its regulatory capture.

Copyright is already destroying our access at all times, just not evenly. If copyright stops you from accessing something, it’s effectively lost media for you, even if it still technically exists for somebody else.

How Copyright May Destroy Our Access To The World’s Academic Knowledge

And if I publish a paper under diamond open access, how would the fact that I have a copyright on that paper destroy access to the knowledge in it? Please stop being hyperbolic, it only leads to maximalists screaming for worse laws, as we’ve seen with the MAFIAA wanting to bring back SOPA.

It also has the effect of blaming tools for the misuse people make of them. If someone beats someone else to death with a hammer, nobody screams for all hammers to be taken off the market, leaving people without the ability to pound in a nail, but sales may be restricted to prevent future misuse.

The bigger picture - longevity

Some years ago I was at a meeting where the issue of electronic data longevity was the issue. Physical media, rock carvings, clay tablets, papyrus, vellum, and even paper, last a long time, remain human readable without technology, and fragments are readable, even, as we recently saw, extracting words from charred scrolls at Pompeii, with advanced AI and scanning techniques.

Digital files are not so readable. File formats come and go, bit rot in storage media, and obsolete hardware, all conspire to “disappear” electronic information in a startlingly short period. Distributed access is one thing that increases redundancy against loss, but the ephemeral nature of the information and its storage, conflicts with this means of preserving information. Even if we had government storage archives of electronic data, equivalent to the Library of Congress for physically published media, would these data centers be useful a century, or a millennium into the future?

The Library at Alexandria proved a nearly single point of failure. But suppose all scrolls had been electronically converted and dispersed to many places, would any of those storage media survive and be readable in any way today?

We may well be enabling an “information dark age” for the future.

Add Your Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now . Want one? Register here

Subscribe to the Techdirt Daily newsletter

Comment Options:

What's this.

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »

Techdirt Daily Newsletter

A weekly news podcast from Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

The Techdirt Greenhouse

Read the latest posts:

• Winding Down Our Latest Greenhouse Panel: The Lessons Learned From SOPA/PIPA
• From The Revolt Against SOPA To The EU's Upload Filters
• Did We Miss Our Best Chance At Regulating The Internet?

Trending Posts

•   Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
•   Jim Jordan Demands Major Ad Companies Explain Why They Won’t Advertise On Truth Social
•   Police Chief Hailed As A Hero For Crashing Into A Car While Fleeing The Scene Of A Shooting

Become an Insider!

Email This Story

This feature is only available to registered users. You can register here or sign in to use it.

Tools & Services

• Research & Reports
• Advertising Policies
• Help & Feedback
• Sponsor / Advertise
• Copia Institute
• Insider Shop

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

What Worries Me Most About a Trump Presidency

By Caroline Fredrickson

Ms. Fredrickson is an adviser at the Open Markets Institute, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University.

There are almost daily headlines now describing what Donald Trump would do if elected: the mass deportations, the pardons handed out to his friends and golf buddies, the Justice Department settling scores and waging personal vendettas. The former president has even promised violence if the election goes against him, warning that it could be a “ blood bath .”

But as worrying as these prospects are, they are far from the biggest threats he poses. What we should fear most is Mr. Trump transforming our government into a modern-day Tammany Hall, installing a kleptocratic leadership that will be difficult if not impossible to dislodge.

I do not discount the possibility of state-sponsored violence, and I worry deeply about the politicization of the civil service . But those are, for the most part, threats and theories, and while they need to be taken seriously, people should be paying more attention to a far more likely reality: that Mr. Trump would spend much of his time in office enriching himself. He failed spectacularly as an insurrectionist and as a disrupter of the civil service, and his clownish and chaotic style may well lead to failure again — but he has succeeded time and time again in the art of the steal. If his grift continues into a second term, it will not only contribute to the fraying trust Americans have in their institutions, but also impair our ability to lead the world through a series of escalating crises.

Recall how Mr. Trump operated in his first term. Not only did he keep his stake in more than a hundred businesses, he made it a practice to visit his properties around the country, forcing taxpayers to pay for rooms and amenities at Trump hotels for the Secret Service and other staff members who accompanied him — money that went straight into his bank accounts and those of his business partners. Those interested in currying favor with the president, from foreign governments to would-be government contractors, knew to spend money at his hotels and golf clubs. According to internal Trump hotel documents, T-Mobile executives spent over $195,000 at the Trump Washington Hotel after announcing a planned merger with Sprint in April 2018. Two years later, the merger was approved.

Government, like fish, rots from the head down. Mr. Trump’s example freed up cabinet members to award huge contracts to their friends, business associates and political allies, while others ran their departments like personal fiefs. After the State Department’s inspector general was fired , Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s use of official trips for clandestine meetings with conservative donors and allegations that his family misused staff members for tasks like walking his dog, picking up his wife from the airport and fetching his takeout came to light. And, in addition to being accused of improperly accepting gifts from those seeking influence, several other cabinet members were alleged to have used government funds for private travel . These may seem like banal infractions, but taken together, they are a reflection of who Mr. Trump is and how he governs.

Throughout his life, through Trump-branded wine, chocolate bars, sneakers, NFTs, ties, MAGA paraphernalia, a $59.99 Bible (of all things ) and, most recently, his Truth Social meme stock ploy, he has shown an unstoppable drive to enrich himself at all costs. He sees politics, like business, as a zero-sum game in which he wins only if someone else loses. These are the instincts that drive corruption, kleptocracy and grift. And, if past is prologue, we’re looking at a much more damaging sequel.

In a second term, Mr. Trump will have more freedom and power to undertake grift. He has already vowed to use pardons to protect supporters and possibly even himself from efforts to curb corruption (which may explain the nonchalance with which his son-in-law Jared Kushner has greeted criticism about the conflicts of interest raised by his recent real estate investments in Serbia and Albania, as well as the Saudi, Qatari and Emirati investments in his wealth fund). And he and his political advisers are building a deep bench of committed and loyal employees who could corrode and potentially destroy mechanisms of accountability in government, paving the way for kleptocratic leaders to entrench themselves in the bureaucracy where many would be able to remain past Mr. Trump’s term. And the mere presence of a phalanx of unquestioning lieutenants in the civil service will ensure that other civil servants fear retribution for objecting to the self-enrichment.

Naturally, I worry about other things, too, particularly the possibility of political violence. Mr. Trump could well claim he has won the election no matter the vote count and call on his supporters to rise up to ensure his takeover. Even before the votes are cast, his supporters are threatening election officials, judicial officials and state legislators, trying to intimidate them into either helping Mr. Trump or stepping aside to be replaced by Trumpists.

But legal, law enforcement and security obstacles are still in place to slow down or stop these efforts. We must remember that this time around, President Biden will still be president, able to control the military and federal law enforcement, and Congress has amended the outdated and vague Electoral Count Act to make it much harder for Mr. Trump’s congressional allies to contest a Trump loss in the electoral college or on Capitol Hill.

No such guardrails exist to curb Trumpian corruption. The Supreme Court, itself corrupt , has made it virtually impossible to prosecute even the most blatant corruption by government officials.

In a kleptocracy, corruption is a feature, not a bug, where politicians apply the law inconsistently , favoring friends and punishing enemies. By controlling government assets and handing them out to friends and family — and dangling possibilities in front of would-be supporters — as well as using politically motivated prosecutions, kleptocrats cement their control of government and disempower opponents. We need only recall Russia’s erstwhile effort to create a democracy: It quickly drained away into the pockets of Vladimir Putin and his oligarchs, leading to the hopelessness and acquiescence of Russian citizens once they realized they could no longer change their situation through democratic means.

Now we face that danger at home. If Mr. Trump wins, America will have a leader invested in his own personal power, both financial and punitive, and supported by a much more capable team. When lucrative contracts are handed out to Trumpist loyalists regardless of merit and dissident voices are targeted and silenced, America’s leadership on the global stage will dissolve when it’s needed most.

The consequences will echo for generations if we lack the ability and the will to attack problems like climate change, mass migration, a new space race and multiple wars. Nothing of substance will be done, Mr. Trump’s cronies will continue to act with impunity, and millions of Americans — already worried that elites are held to a different standard than regular people are — will lose even more confidence in their government, convinced that everyone in Washington is out for himself.

This combination of passivity on the one hand and impunity on the other could be fatal for our democracy. This is the true danger Mr. Trump poses.

Caroline Fredrickson is an adviser at the Open Markets Institute, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

• Presidential Search
• Editor's Pick

In Sudden Reversal, Harvard To Require Standardized Testing for Next Admissions Cycle

Harvard Business School Prof. Gino Accused of Plagiarism Following Data Fraud Allegations

Nearly 500 Graduate Students Petition Harvard to Not Restrict Emergency Fund Access

3 Months After Gay Resigned, Harvard FAS Dean Says Presidential Search ‘Has Not Begun Yet’

Harvard Graduate Union’s BDS Caucus Circulates Letter Calling for Divestment From Israel

‘Chilling Effect’: Harvard Undergraduates for Academic Freedom Host Film Screening, Panel Discussion

The Harvard Undergraduates for Academic Freedom hosted a screening and panel discussion of “The Coddling of the American Mind” on Wednesday evening.

HUAF — launched last Thursday by Luka Pavikjevikj ’27, Lorenzo Z. Ruiz ’27, and Theodore W. Tobel ’27 — is not yet registered as an official Harvard student organization. Harvard professor Steven A. Pinker, a co-president of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, sponsored the event.

The screening marked the HUAF’s inaugural event and drew a crowd of around 40 attendees. Pavikjevikj, a Crimson News editor, began the event by expressing his hope for “meaningful, open, and free dialogue” across Harvard’s campus.

Pinker echoed the sentiment, saying that “we do need a voice for the academic freedom of students that is not completely submerged with the academic freedom of faculty.”

The film, based on the 2018 New York Times best-selling book “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg C. Lukianoff and Jonathan D. Haidt, argues that current college campus policies foster overprotection and limit academic freedom — which contributes to a Gen Z mental health crisis.

Following four undergraduates at American universities, the film explores the ways in which social media; diversity, equity, and inclusion training; cancel culture on campus; and other phenomena allegedly stifle academic freedom and cultivate intellectual and emotional fragility in America’s youth.

The panel discussion following the film featured Ted Balaker and Courtney M. Balaker, co-creators of the film alongside Anthony M. Rodriguez, an associate professor at Providence College.

“You really have to pay attention to the chilling effect. The ripple is wider than the splash,” Ted Balaker said, warning that cancel culture has caused many to silence themselves to avoid repercussions.

Rodriguez agreed with Balaker, saying that “professors self-censor much more actively in the past four or five years.”

Balaker also criticized members of older generations, like himself, for their role in the mental health crisis facing Gen Z.

“I have more compassion for Gen Zers,” he said in an interview. “If they’re snowflakes, then we’re the clouds.”

Pinker emphasized the need for groups like HUAF to represent student interests — which he said are often in opposition to those of the faculty — in discussions around academic freedom. He also criticized several policies and programs implemented by Harvard College, such as diversity statements for FAS faculty candidates, as well as freshman orientation.

“The freshman orientations have not been scrutinized, they have not been deliberated,” he said in an interview. “They’ve been implemented by this cadre of bureaucrats who have set up their own culture independent of scrutiny.”

College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo declined to comment.

In an interview with The Crimson after the event, Ruiz, a Crimson Editorial editor, said that though he did not agree with many of the film’s arguments, he appreciated the event itself.

“I think it is part of a general push of engaging with material and engaging in conversations that make us uncomfortable,” he said. “So I think that it’s actually a beautiful thing that we were able to put on this screening.”

Ruiz also emphasized his belief that individuals from across the ideological spectrum should be able to come together to promote academic freedom.

“One of the most important parts of advocating academic freedom and intellectual diversity right now is ensuring that we have stakeholders on the left, on the right — that all of us can claim this project as ours and something that holds benefit for all of us,” he said.

Tobel pointed to the wider importance of HUAF, saying in an interview that “we ideally would love to serve as an advocacy channel for students.”

“It’s important that all students at Harvard are involved in these initiatives and decisions that are being made by the University,” he said.

Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.