Now That's What I Call Criminology

Explaining all the variations n the range of published books, journals, methodologies and formats can be very confusing. Often the differences overlap or are at best unclear.

One of the most common sources of confusion for students setting out is the difference between edited books and 'normal' books. By way of a brief explanation, an edited book is written by lots of different people (typically one chapter each) and then the editors will be in overall charge of getting the chapters into shape.

One analogy I've used to explain this in the past is how music is bought.
It goes like this;

an edited book = Ministry of Sound 90's Anthems because every track is a different artist (including something by Prodigy)
whereas...
a book by a single author would = Songs for a Jilted Generation by Prodigy.

So one's a compilation and one's a single artist.
Simple.

Edited books are useful because you can compile lots of expertise into one tome and it shares out the effort of writing between many authors. If you're thinking of imminently using your Aspire card (sorry any post-grads reading this) then you could do worse than look at what introductory edited books are available for your units this year.

For my next post I'll be explaining the Peer Review process via interpretive dance...