Library & Cultural Services: Criminology: Theses & Dissertations

General Information

Theses (or dissertations as they are sometimes called) are the product of extended independent research by students. They may be produced at undergraduate level (e.g. 3rd year Capstone projects), and are nearly always a feature of postgraduate research from Master's through to Ph.D. level.

Books offering guidance on how to write a thesis can be found at LB 2369 on floor 5 of the Albert Sloman Library.

Students often need to consult theses for various reasons, including:

checking the style and presentation of good past dissertations from their department
making sure that they are not repeating research already undertaken
using theses on a similar topic to gain useful information and/or references

University of Essex Research Repository - contains digitised versions of theses submitted after 30 September 2016.

Essex Theses

Essex Criminology theses can be found in the following locations:

Sociology Study Centre - print copies of dissertations submitted up to 2018 are available in the Sociology Study Centre (5A.307). These are all undergraduate (2.1 and 1st) and Master's dissertations. Submissions from 2018 onwards are available to access digitally, with a request to the Department's Study Support Manager. Please go to the Study Centre Moodle page, where there is further information on the Dissertation Library. For help and advice on finding suitable examples, please email: socstudy@essex.ac.uk
Albert Sloman Library - the University Library at Colchester holds print copies of all Essex Criminology M.Phil. and Ph.D. dissertations up to 30 September 2016. They are listed in the catalogue, and must be consulted in the Library. To search by department type the keywords: essex thesis sociology
University of Essex Research Repository - contains digitised versions of theses submitted after 30 September 2016. These are also listed in the library catalogue

UK & North American Theses

To search for dissertations from other universities in the UK and beyond, there are a couple of very useful databases:

EThOS offers access to digitised UK doctoral theses

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses lists North American & UK theses (with some coverage of other countries):

EThOS
EThOS aims to provide a 'single point of access' where researchers the world over can access all theses produced by UK Higher Education. The database can be searched by anyone, but individual users need to register to get access to the full text of theses. Many theses are free to download instantly, whilst others will only be available once digitisation has been requested. The hub automatically harvests e-theses from Institutional Repositories and digitises paper theses from participating institutions to offer the single point of access. Many UK institutions support Open Access to their theses, so download of their digital and digitised theses is free to the researcher. A small number of participating institutions may not be able to offer Open Access and in this case the researcher may have to pay for the digitisation. Where a thesis must be digitised before supply, you can expect a short delay. However, you will be informed when the thesis is ready for collection and you can then log on to the system and download it.
ProQuest dissertations and theses
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses: Global (PQDTGlobal) is the world's most comprehensive collection of full-text dissertations and theses. As the official digital dissertations archive for the Library of Congress and as the database of record for graduate research, PQDTGlobal includes millions of searchable citations to dissertations and theses from 1861 to the present day together with over a million full-text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. Over 2.1 million titles are available for purchase as printed copies. The database offers full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and strong retrospective full-text coverage for older graduate works. It also includes PQDT UK & Ireland content.

More than 70,000 new full-text dissertations and theses are added to the database each year through dissertations publishing partnerships with 700 leading academic institutions worldwide, and collaborative retrospective digitization of dissertations. Full-text dissertations are archived as submitted by the degree-granting institution. Some will be native PDF, some PDF image.

Each dissertation published since July, 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master's theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts. Simple bibliographic citations are available for dissertations dating from 1637. Where available, PQDTGlobal provides 24-page previews of dissertations and theses.

Note: Full text for certain publications is subject to market availability
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Open Access Digitised Dissertations

There are also many portals to open access dissertations. NDLTD maintains a pretty comprehensive & up to date list of national portals around the world: