ABSTRACT
Research is often classified into categories. For the most part, these categories provide us a way to organize research so we can access it more efficiently. For example, a criminologist might wonder whether there is any research on the process by which a police officer becomes socialized into the police subculture. Using an index of published research (e.g. Criminal Justice Abstracts), the criminologist may use the search term ‘police subculture’ to locate the relevant research. This may produce hundreds, maybe thousands, of articles. To narrow the search, he may add the terms ‘explanatory’ and ‘longitudinal’ to the search browser. This search would produce information on research that might explain (explanatory) how police officers become socialized into the police subculture over time (longitudinal).
