5 – Reviewing the Literature

Sample

Annotated Bibliography

Bergeron, L. (1971). The History of Quebec, a Patriote's Handbook. NC Press, Toronto.

A retired Concordia University History Professor, Bergeron is a pro-revolution Quebec nationalist and playwright. Other works include history-themed comic books, and Quebec-language dictionaries. A translation from French, this handbook provides an account of Quebec history from the French-Canadian point of view, a rare incursion for Anglophones to read into a Quebec nationalists’ mindset.

Jenkins, K. (1966). Montreal, Island City of the St. Lawrence. New York: Doubleday & Co.

A comprehensive history of Montreal for general readers, from the time of Jacques-Cartier to the 1950’s. Covers the history of colonial governors, mayors, universities, colleges, churches, and groups such as Iroquois, Irish, Italian, Jews, Scottish, French. Discusses American relations at length, including the Boston Fenians. Little is known today of the author. Often cited in history journal articles. Some interpretations may be misleading, however the lengthy bibliography gives credence. Elements are not cited in particular. Index. No endnotes.

Sample

A Brief History of Doing Time: The California Institution for Women in the 1960s and the 1990s

By Rosemary Gartner, and Candace Kruttschnitt,

Law & Society Review, Vol. 38, No. 2 (June 2004), pp. 267-304

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1555106

ABSTRACT – Recent scholarship on penality describes profound changes in the ideology, discourses, and policies shaping criminal punishment in the late-twentieth- century United States. To assess the implications of these changes for those subject to criminal punishment, we examine the experiences of women in prison at two key points in the recent history of penality. We compare how imprisonment (…)

INTRODUCTION – Punishment changed in the United States in the last third of the twentieth century. The indicators of this change are well- documented and widely agreed upon. Prison populations soared, correctional and rehabilitative goals were largely supplanted in official and popular discourse by concerns with public safety and victims' rights, penal policy became highly politicized, and public sentiment toward criminals hardened (…).

LITERATURE REVIEW –   A major theme in prison research is that the experience of imprisonment-the ways prisoners think about and relate to other 269 prisoners, to their keepers, and to the prison regime-is affected by prisons' external and internal environments. With shifts in the political, cultural, and economic climate of the larger society, the relationship of prisons to society as well as the relations of actors within the prison change (Jacobs, 1977; Clemmer, 1950; Sykes, 1958).

Similarly, official regimes, structures, and practices inside prisons shape the responses and adaptations of prisoners (Adams, 1992; Bottoms, 1999; Grusky, 1959; Sparks, Bottoms, & Hay, 1996; Street, Vinter, & Perrow, 1966). Men's prisons provide conspicuous and well-documented examples of differences over time and among prisons in the experience of imprisonment, such as ebbs and flows in prison riots, the expansion of prison gangs, and trends in prisoner litigation (e.g., Adler & Longhurst, 1994; Colvin, 1992; Cummins, 1994; Silberman, 1995).  (…)

METHODOLOGY – (…)

Sample

Evaluating Returns to Agricultural Research: A Review

By George W. Norton and Jeffrey S. Davis

American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Nov., 1981), pp. 685-699

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1241211.pdf?acceptTC=true

ABSTRACT - This paper reviews and compares the most common approaches used to evaluate public agricultural research investment. Ex post studies fall into two major groups: (a) consumer and producer surplus analyses, estimating average rates of return to research, and (b) production function analyses, estimating marginal rates of return to research. Ex ante studies fall into four groups: (a) those using scoring models to rank research activities, (b) those employing benefit-cost analysis to establish rates of return to research, (c) those using simulation models, and (d) those using mathematical programming to select an optimal mix of research activities.

INTRODUCTION – As public investment in agricultural research has expanded, attention has focused on its productivity and the efficiency with which funds are allocated. Decision makers desire information on research payoffs in order to assess alternative uses for public funds. In addition, the public itself is increasingly concerned about the productivity of its tax dollars.

This paper reviews the major research techniques that have been developed to evaluate returns to agricultural research. It extends previous reviews of Peterson (1971), Shumway (1973, 1977), Easter and Norton, Peterson and Hayami, Sim and Gardner, Schuh and Tollini, and Scobie (1979). We follow the Schuh and Tollini procedure of categorizing returns to research studies into ex ante and ex post evaluations.

Major studies which illustrate each technique are discussed and compared to show (a) differences in assumptions made in studies using similar methods, (b) techniques appropriate to answer different questions, and (c) incomplete areas where methodology needs development or improvement. (…)

CONCLUSION – (…)

REFERENCES – (…)