Back to the ANES question search

The ANES Time Series Codebook Search utility searches existing codebooks from studies in the ANES Time Series. (A list of Time Series Studies is available from the ANES Data Center).

In a study codebook, a codebook record is the documentation for a specific variable. This utility will allow you to search full codebook records or just the portion of each codebook record which represents the question text for the question with which the variable is associated.

Text matches are character-string based rather than 'word' based; therefore you can search "Congress" and matches will be made with both "Congress" and "Congressional". Because many older codebooks are currently in an all-CAPS format, matches are not case-sensitive. Wild cards and regular expressions are not accommodated.

The success of matches will be limited by the thoroughness of codebook documentation for a particular Time Series study (or for a particular variable). For example, if you search for "thermometer" you may not match with every thermometer variable, especially if you choose to search among question texts only. This is because thermometers typically appear in a series, and question wording after the 1st thermometer usually excludes the word "thermometer" itself (wording is typically more like "How would you rate XXXX?"). Even if you search full codebook texts rather than question texts only, in those cases where the remainder of the codebook record (apart from the question text) also does not include the word "thermometer," then no match will be made.

In addition, some searches will be less than comprehensive because keywords are not yet present. For example, if you search for "President" you will miss some questions about the President who was in office at the time of the study because some records in the codebook may only reference actual name, rather then identifying the person as the (current) President.

The addition of keywords, and other improvements to the Time Series codebooks which will enhance search capabilities, will be determined by the availability of future funding resources.

Note about constructing search conditions:

A maximum of two (2) search conditions are allowable. If 2 search conditions are used, they must be linked by a choice among:
          And
          Or
          And Not
          Or Not

The 2nd search condition, however, cannot be used if the 1st search condition has not used both its texts fields (that is, the 1st search condition must have specified two matches).

A search condition can specify one or two matches, using its 2 text fields. If a search condition includes 2 matches, then the relationship between its own 2 matches must be specified among:    And / Or / And Not / Or Not

Grouping and priority of matches follow mathematical patterns as follows.

      (CONDITION A)      And / Or / And Not / Or Not      (CONDITION B)

or more specifically (if each condition has 2 parts):

      ( Condition 1A      And/Or/And Not/Or Not       Condition 1B )
                  AND / OR / AND NOT / OR NOT
      ( Condition 2A      And/Or/And Not/Or Not       Condition 2B )