The databases you use will depend on your topic. The following links are popular databases in the areas of sociology and criminal justice:
Includes current and retrospective bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references found within the world's leading scholarly social sciences journals covering more than 50 disciplines. Hosted on the Web of Knowledge/Web of Science Platform.
Check if the article is from a reputable, peer-reviewed journal. Social Sciences Citation Index only includes peer-reviewed journals, but the ProQuest databases include more types of content so make sure to check.
Peer-reviewed articles usually have a structured format: abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and references. For this class, all your journal articles you find should have a methodology section.
Verify authors' affiliations and previous publications. Author(s) should be clearly visible on the journal article.
Look for extensive citations. These could be potentially additional journal articles for your own research.