This guide is designed to help you with the library research component of your research project for CRIM 1220. As this is a research methods course, you will be learning how to conduct primary research in class. This guide is to help you with the secondary research you need to complete your literature review -- finding out what other people have already found out about your topic, and situating your topic within that context. What do we already know about your research topic? This is going to help you talk about why your particular topic is interesting or useful. Secondary research can also help you formulate your research question -- you need to have some basic knowledge about a thing in order to ask appropriate questions about that thing, and you don't want to replicate research someone has already conducted. This background research will also help you with your discussion – in your research, did you find things that support or contradict what has been found in the literature?
