an by the use of other words" (Russell, 1948, p. 63). Ostensive definitions are particularly useful in exploratory research and when concepts are being developed. Ostensive definitions, thus, are useful in research related to law enforcement. Second, verbal definitions are used in scholarly inquiry to explain concepts in terms of other concepts (Emory, 1992, p. 30). Such definitions involve the use of words of approximately the same level of abstraction to assure that verbal definitions will aid in the understanding of the concept being explained. Third, operational definitions extend the level of abstraction, by defining a concept "in terms of specific testing criteria or operations" (Emory, 1992, p. 31). Such criteria must have empirical referents. Operational definitions must also state what phenomena will be observed and how such observation will be performed. The use of operational definitions is essential in the conduct of research related to law enforcement.
Considerations of truth and verification are also critical in the conduct of scholarly research (Barzun and Graff, 1977, pp. 83 146). In scientific inquiry, a proposition is a statement "about concepts which may be judged as true or false if it refers to observable phenomena" (Emory, 1992, p. 37). When phenomenon are not observable, characteristics and relationships involved in a phenomenon may be developed into a theory. Theory, in scientific inquiry, is, in effect, a descriptive explanation of how something works an explanation of the interrelated actions within a system.
When a proposition is formulated for empirical testing a hypothesis is created (Emory, 1992, pp. 32 33). Hypotheses are declarative statements that are both tentative and conjectural in character. Hypotheses may be both descriptive and relational in form. Propositions are statements proposing an explanation for a phenomenon, while hypotheses are used to test propositions. While hypot...