Home Graphing & Data Tools Policy Analysis Budget Trends Mixed Policy & Budget Data-Related Resources Policy Budget Crosswalk. Sortable Committee Table Committee Jurisdiction Tutorials Policy Tool Tutorial Budget Tool Tutorial Chart Tutorial Graph Examples Scenarios Rise & Decline of Issues, A Rise & Decline of Issues, B Institutional Capacity

Scenario 1 Part A.2: Rise and Decline of Issues in Congress
Finding patterns of attention to other Major Topics- Detailed Example

In this example, we will construct a query to evaluate attention to two major topics, Education and Space, Science, and Technology.

This example shows an increase in congressional attention to both issues.

Here are some things to keep in mind while looking at this example:

In the previous exercise, we looked at the rise of issues that Baumgartner has associated with social movements.
What about other issues, like Science and Technology or Education?
Can we explain the increase of these issues with the increase in social movement activity?
Or is there another explanation for the increase in Congressional attention?

The final chart produced using the Policy Analysis Tool:

(Click on the thumbnails to view the larger picture.)

Step 1

Following the link, Policy Analysis Tool, will open up the query form in a new window.

First, select the dataset of interest. In this case, "Congressional Hearings" is already selected, since it is set as the default dataset.
Tehn check the boxes for Education and Space, Science, and Technology (These have been selected in form shown above).
Next, select the option for "Congressional Sessions". Select "79" from the "From" drop-down list and "105" from the "To" drop-down list.
Since we want to see the results as a percent of all hearings, select the option to analyze the data as a "percent of all activity."
Finally, click the "Search" button, since we do not need any filters or subtopics available on the Advanced Form.

	Clicking the "Search" button, produces a bar chart showing the percent of hearings dedicated to each of the topics we selected, Education and Space, Science, and Technology.

	Additionally, below the chart is a table of the results. Clicking on the values in the table will produce of list of the hearings for that particular issue in that particular congress.

You can alter the appearance of the chart by right-clicking anywhere on the chart. This will produce an menu of options.
The picture above shows the results from selecting the lines picture from the "Gallery" options.
Also, we have edited the title, by selecting "Edit Title" from the menu of options.
Finally, we have created a legend box by selecting "Legend Box" from the menu of options, then right-clicking in the resulting legend box and selecting "Float" from that menu and moving the box to the location shown in the picture.
For more information on altering the chart appearance, please see the Chart Tutorial.