Lexie Diggs

Darius Brown
ENGL 297
Ethnographic Report

A Study of a Criminology Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park

In the growing field of criminology, there are many questions that remain unanswered. There are
so many topics within the criminology field, that the public is under educated on. As a society,
we do not typically know how criminologist conduct, edit, or finalize their research. Although
courses in school give you a broad aspect of the criminology field, it does not give you the full
background information into how one goes about conducting their research, or what types of
experiments were used. Students today who are interested within this field take standardized
classes, nothing is geared toward a specific type of subject. While standard classes give a student
a broad sense of the field, it does not provide them with insight into specifics, such as youth
crimes, terrorism, or cyber security. For this reason, we have decided to conduct a study to
provide our population with an insight into the work and progress that goes into the criminology
field. Our study will assist in the understanding of the work environment of a criminology
professor, and researched. We will examine the research methods conducted such as different
experiments used, the editing process used, and how one goes about finalizing their research.
This study will examine the aspects of the review process, and the people that are involved to
help create the finalized project. We will conduct this research through structured interviews, and
our own information on the topic. By imploring these methods of research, we hope to examine
the mindset, approach, and techniques that criminologist use to succeed in this field. Our
findings will help improve the understanding of the criminology field for students, and will help
interest future students to become involved within this field.

Research Location and Subject

To collect the data needed to address my research questions, I turned to the University of
Maryland (UMD). UMD can be found in the town of College Park, which is just outside of our
nations capital Washington DC. Maryland is a well-known university for their criminology
department. The criminology department offers many opportunities for students who are
interested within the field, such as internships and undergraduate and graduate research. We
chose to study David Maimon, a criminology professor, employed at the University of Maryland.
Professor Maimon is currently teaching two different classes, conducting field research, writing,
reviewing, and editing articles. Professor Maimon has a variety of experience within the
criminology field because he has many different topics throughout his career that have impacted
our society. He is currently working on cyber security, which is a topic the public is not well
educated on. David Maimon is a great resource for his students or staff members because he is
well educated and experienced within his field.

Data Collection Procedures

In Order to answer our research, question our main method of data collection was interviewing
Professor David Maimon.

The workplace observations were key to understanding the environment of the University of
Maryland Criminology department. Noting the arrangement of the room, the overall setting of
the workplace, and interactions with fellow editors situates the UMD students into the realm of
the criminology field. These components proved to influence the criminology research and
editing process.

We researched David Maimons background to provide us with insight into his past life, and
current research. We looked into his past education to find out where his undergraduate and
graduate studies were conducted. After reviewing his past, we researched his recently printed
article on Youth and Neighborhood Crimes. This allowed us to understand his field research
conducted on this specific topic, and the results. Next, we analyzed more information on
Professor Maimon, and found the grants he has written, along with the tons of awards he has
received for his articles and research. But we sought to understand his methods more in depth.
We wanted to find out what types of experiments must be used, and what specific research is
necessary, by conducting an interview.

These interviews, which we recorded at the UMD criminology department and later transcribed,
provided interesting evidence that helped me to triangulate data I had collected through my
observations in the workplace and my analysis of his recent work.. During the stimulated
elicitation interviews, we present Professor Maimon with a series of questions. We asked for his
background history, interests, research methods, and editing processes. We used semi-structured
interviews to understand his overall approach to certain sections, documents, and projects. These
open-ended questions allowed Professor Maimon to explain his choices more freely, revealing
information that I may not have anticipated or thought to ask during my stimulated elicitation
interview.

Results

On April 12th, 2016, we entered Professor Maimons office in the Criminal Justice and
Criminology Departments area in LeFrak Hall. The room look like a typical professor's office
with bookshelves full of text. In his case the books varied from subjects about criminological
theory and other computer related topics, like cybercrime. He immediately greeted us and
cleared off the leather chairs so that we could begin the interview. After some small talk, we
began to ask him questions of his background and why he chose to follow the career path he did.
He explained to us that he was from Israel and how it is mandatory for him to join the military
for 3 years. It was there he became injured and couldn't do the things a business man could do.
So, in chancing success he studied sociology at the University of Haifa in Israel. Later he, would
pursue a masters in criminology due to his rejection into their graduate sociology program and
lack of openings in any other programs. Initially he began focusing his research on
neighborhood and community effects due to his upbringing in a bad neighborhood. He is now
focusing on cybercrimes and explained to us the differing research process that both topics have.

Research Process

In conducting nonexperimental research Professor Maimon emphasized the importance of using

secondary data in trying to get published. Mainly it is due to the fact that gathering your own
data takes a lot of time and being a professor, you are expected to publish your research in good
journals. For example, in one of his research projects called the Project of Human development
in Chicago Neighborhoods, he analyzed datasets about Chicago neighborhoods and their
residents. In order to research if there was a connection between peoples involvement in crime
and the environment. This method is different from the method Professor Maimon uses in his
current area of study, Cybercrime. In this area of study Professor Maimon explains to us that he
mostly conducts experiments on a companys infrastructure. He explained that in their
experiments they set up target computers with software in them like a cctv camera that allows
them to watch hackers activity in those computers. Once thats complete the data is then coded
into either an excel or SPSS file, where they run analysis on the data which would tell them if
their intervention effective in influencing the hackers behavior.

Writing Process

The writing process that follows can go in either two directions depending on whether you're
writing a grant proposal or simply writing a paper. In writing a grant proposal Professor
Maimon would usually sit down with his colleagues and figure out a way to get more money so
that they can expand their experiment and knowledge of the topic. Then they identify a funding
agency who would be interested in their ideas, write up a grant proposal asking for money, and
send it out to the agency. If he is just writing a paper he begins with writing up his tables that
display the T-Test or analysis he ran on his data. Then professor Maimon writes the paper in
order, starting with the introduction, then he writes the theories section where he discusses the
criminological theories that may be involved in experiment. Next is the hypothesis section in
which he explains what he expects to find and why. After that he describes the data and talks
about the results, he finishes off with the conclusion. After this is done he begins the editing
process.
Editing Process

When David Maimon begins his editing process it mostly will depend on his part within the
project. If he is the first author then he will write the whole paper, and then send it to his
colleagues for feedback. His colleagues are normally graduate students at UMD, professors at
UMD, or other professors around the globe. They will provide him with their feedback, revise
the paper, and add their own information to it if needed. Then Professor Maimon will read
through the paper again, and may change sections or add information, but then it is sent out for
review again by his colleagues. Once his colleagues give him the green light he will send his
paper to a professional editor to make sure the paper is free of grammatical errors, and the
message being conveyed is clear.

Next, he will receive the draft back from the professional editor, and he will go over the
comments made on the paper. Professor Maimon will clean up his documents after reviewing the
editors comments and then he will send it out for review to a journal. But a journal has different
ways about editing your paper, they can want to use your paper or not, they can reject your
paper, they can decide to revise and submit, or they may come up with their own ideas on what
the paper should look like. Being an occasional journal reviewer himself, Professor Maimon
stated that one of the criteria that really determines if a paper will get published is if it pushes the
envelope on a certain topic or explores something new and interesting.

Journal editing is an essential revision process that you go through as a professor, and a writer.
Professor Maimon states that a lot of feedback from the people you work with, from people
whose opinions matter to you, helps to make your paper more perfect. The editing process is not
easy or fast, Professor Maimon told us that sometimes it can take 25 drafts before the paper is
good to go for publication.

Conclusions

Although this study was solely based on one criminology professor it does not undermine the
importance of these collected observations. The information gathered in this study helps
criminology students and future students begin to understand what this specific field includes,
what research is used, what experiments will be needed, and what type of editing process is used.
Particularly for students at the University of Maryland, this study can offer useful insights into
the internship opportunities available within the criminology field and what they may come to
expect from those internships. In addition, this research provides a step toward filling in the gap
about the research and editing process within the criminology field. It is important to continue to
research on criminologist, because everyone has a different research, and editing process.
Continuing research can allow future students to fill in the gap about how criminologist go
about conducting their studies and why, but also how they go about editing their research to
make it useful for the public. Conducting more research will provide students with a satisfying
insight into this particular profession.