Social and Legal Studies

Top Research Topics at Social & Legal Studies?

The journal was organized to reinforce research efforts on Law, Criminology, Media studies, Politics and Gender studies. It focused on Law research but expanded to cover Context (language use). Criminal justice is a major topic of Criminology research.

The journal holds forums on Media studies that merges themes from other disciplines such as Religious studies and Art history. Social & Legal Studies links adjacent topics like Politics with Political economy.

• Law (41.84%)
• Criminology (16.05%)
• Media studies (11.77%)

What are the most cited papers published in the journal?

• Plural Policing and Democratic Governance (311 citations)
• Governed By Law (185 citations)
• Jurisdiction and Scale: Legal `Technicalities' as Resources for Theory: (177 citations)

Research areas of the most cited articles at Social & Legal Studies:

The journal articles are organized to reinforce research efforts on Law, Politics, Criminology, Law and economics and Gender studies. The journal publications investigate Law research which frequently intersects with Corporate governance. The published articles explore research in Criminology alongside concepts in Social psychology and other areas of study in Criminal justice.

What topics the last edition of the journal is best known for?

• Law
• World War II
• China

The previous edition focused in particular on these issues:

The concepts of Criminology, Law, State (polity), Human rights and Gender studies are tackled in the journal. In addition to Criminology research, it aims to explore topics under Mental health and Policy analysis. Social & Legal Studies tackles research in various disciplines, including Law and Abortion law.

In it, Immigration detention, Colonialism, Welfare, Economic Justice and Politics are investigated in conjunction with one another to address concerns in State (polity) research. Transgender and Queer are all subfields of Gender studies research that were featured in the journal.

The most cited articles from the last journal are:

• ‘It’s Torture for the Soul’: The Harms of Image-Based Sexual Abuse: (9 citations)
• Trading Nudes Like Hockey Cards: Exploring the Diversity of ‘Revenge Porn’ Cases Responded to in Law: (5 citations)
• Interrogating Vulnerability: Reframing the Vulnerable Suspect in Police Custody: (4 citations)

Papers citation over time

A key indicator for each journal is its effectiveness in reaching other researchers with the papers published at that venue.

The chart below presents the interquartile range (first quartile 25%, median 50% and third quartile 75%) of the number of citations of articles over time.

Top authors and change over time

The top authors publishing in Social & Legal Studies (based on the number of publications) are:

• Carl F. Stychin (12 papers) absent at the last edition,
• David Campbell (11 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition,
• Vanessa E. Munro (9 papers) absent at the last edition,
• Emilios Christodoulidis (9 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition,
• Alan Norrie (8 papers) absent at the last edition.

The overall trend for top authors publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top authors.

Top affiliations and change over time

Only papers with recognized affiliations are considered

The top affiliations publishing in Social & Legal Studies (based on the number of publications) are:

• Keele University (47 papers) published 3 papers at the last edition,
• University of Warwick (38 papers) published 3 papers at the last edition, 2 less than at the previous edition,
• University of Kent (34 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition, 1 less than at the previous edition,
• University of Edinburgh (28 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition,
• York University (24 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition the same number as at the previous edition.

The overall trend for top affiliations publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top affiliations.

Publication chance based on affiliation

The publication chance index shows the ratio of articles published by the best research institutions in the journal edition to all articles published within that journal. The best research institutions were selected based on the largest number of articles published during all editions of the journal.

The chart below presents the percentage ratio of articles from top institutions (based on their ranking of total papers).Top affiliations were grouped by their rank into the following tiers: top 1-10, top 11-20, top 21-50, and top 51+. Only articles with a recognized affiliation are considered.

During the most recent 2021 edition, 12.05% of publications had an unrecognized affiliation. Out of the publications with recognized affiliations, 23.29% were posted by at least one author from the top 10 institutions publishing in the journal. Another 10.96% included authors affiliated with research institutions from the top 11-20 affiliations. Institutions from the 21-50 range included 31.51% of all publications and 34.25% were from other institutions.

Returning Authors Index

A very common phenomenon observed among researchers publishing scientific articles is the intentional selection of journals they have already attended in the past. In particular, it is worth analyzing the case when the authors participate in the same journal from year to year.

The Returning Authors Index presented below illustrates the ratio of authors who participated in both a given as well as the previous edition of the journal in relation to all participants in a given year.

Returning Institution Index

The graph below shows the Returning Institution Index, illustrating the ratio of institutions that participated in both a given and the previous edition of the conference in relation to all affiliations present in a given year.

The experience to innovation index

Our experience to innovation index was created to show a cross-section of the experience level of authors publishing in a journal. The index includes the authors publishing at the last edition of a journal, grouped by total number of publications throughout their academic career (P) and the total number of citations of these publications ever received (C).

The group intervals were selected empirically to best show the diversity of the authors' experiences, their labels were selected as a convenience, not as judgment. The authors were divided into the following groups:

• Novice - P < 5 or C < 25 (the number of publications less than 5 or the number of citations less than 25),
• Competent - P < 10 or C < 100 (the number of publications less than 10 or the number of citations less than 100),
• Experienced - P < 25 or C < 625 (the number of publications less than 25 or the number of citations less than 625),
• Master - P < 50 or C < 2500 (the number of publications less than 50 or the number of citations less than 2500),
• Star - P ≥ 50 and C ≥ 2500 (both the number of publications greater than 50 and the number of citations greater than 2500).

The chart below illustrates experience levels of first authors in cases of publications with multiple authors.