PDQ-Notes. Reynolds Farley. PDQ-Note 3 Displaying Your Results in the Expert Query Window

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1 PDQ-Notes Reynolds Farley PDQ-Note 3 Displaying Your Results in the Expert Query Window

PDQ-Note 3 Displaying Your Results in the Expert Query Window Most of your options for configuring your query results are available on the final Results tab, while you are viewing your output and can

2 PDQ-Note 3 Displaying Your Results in the Expert Query Window Most of your options for configuring your query results are available on the final Results tab, while you are viewing your output and can be toggled off and on while you decide how you want the display to look. One feature, however, is available only before you open a query, while you are still in the Workspace window. Here you can elect to display your setup selections at the top of the final Results window, as shown in the figure below. To save screen space, the default for this preference is off. To turn it on, click the View menu and select Show Setup on Result. A check mark will indicate that it is on. If you decide to toggle this off or on after your query is open, the change will not take effect until you open your next query. PDQ-Explore will remember your preference and start up each time with the toggle set as it was when you ended your last session. Displaying the setup information is useful, especially when sharing your results with others, who need to know the universe you are working with. After producing your query results, you have some choices regarding how these results are displayed. Let s suppose that you produce a two-way tabulation focused on New England showing the employment status of young men, comparing whites and blacks using the PUMS percent data set. To do this, you request an Expert Query and enter the following data items and operators into the Universe/Selection box of the Expert Query window. For more about these operators see PDQ-Note 4 Universe Selection Using Comparison Operators. division=1 & age>17 & age<25 Into the Row (Dimension 1) box, you would enter: rlabor Into the Column (Dimension 2) box, you would enter: race:1..2 Page 1 12/19/2001

You are requesting a two-way cross-tabulation. There will be six rows in your cross-tabulation showing the six different labor forces status categories coded by the Census Bureau.

PDQ-Explore gives you a variety of ways to show the two-way cross-tabulation.

3 You are requesting a two-way cross-tabulation. There will be six rows in your cross-tabulation showing the six different labor forces status categories coded by the Census Bureau. There will be two columns: one showing the labor force status of young white men, and a second showing the labor force status of young black men. PDQ-Explore gives you a variety of ways to show the two-way cross-tabulation. When you select the Options menu [Note: the Options menu is not available on the Simple Query window] of the Expert Query window, you will bring down a menu with the following items that may be specified: Category Value Display Options: This option toggles the display of category numbers next to the category names. Suppress Above/Below: This option is toggled on and off by selecting it. When it is active, a check mark will appear to the left. This option is relevant only when you have used a colon operator with the data item in Row (Dimension 1), Column (Dimension 2) or Repeat For Each (Dimension 3) box. For example if you entered race:1..2 into the Column (Dimension 2) box, you are requesting one column of data for whites, and one for blacks. If the Suppress Above/Below option is engaged, data will not be shown for rows and columns above or below those you specified with use of an operator in the Row (Dimension 1), Column (Dimension 2) or Repeat For Each (Dimension 3) box. Page 2 12/19/2001

4 Suppress Zeros: You could call for a cross-tabulation in which all the cell entries in a row or in a column are zero. For example, you may wish to determine the number of African American female veterinarians in each state. Some states will likely have no black female veterinarians. If that is the case, your output will not show the name of the state if the Suppress Zeros option is engaged. If you wish to disengage the default mode of the Suppress Zero option, please highlight and click Suppress Zero to remove the check mark. The Census Bureau s coding scheme does not make use of all numerical values within a range. For example, the numerical code for Alabama on the state data item is 1 while that for Wyoming is 57. But there are not 57 states in this country. The numerical values of 3, 7, 14, 43 and 52 are not used. When engaged, the Suppress Zeros option ensures that your output will not be cluttered with empty rows or columns for these values. Sort All: This option is toggled on and off by highlighting it. If names are assigned by the Census Bureau as well as numerical values (e.g. the names of occupations or countries of birth or ancestries), selecting this option will alphabetically sort the categories in Rows, Columns and the Repeat For Each data item. Suppose you enter race as your Row (Dimension 1) data item and sex for your Column (Dimension 2) data item. If the Sort All option is engaged by highlighting it, the names of the races will appear in alphabetical order and the column of data for females will appear before the column for males. If the Sort All option is turned off, the rows and columns will be ordered according to the numerical codes assigned by the Census Bureau. Show Commas: If this option is engaged, cell entries will be shown with commas appropriately inserted. If this option is turned off, cell entries will be shown without commas. Percent Options: If you highlight this option you will find that a menu appears to the right of Percent Option. Page 3 12/19/2001

The default mode is to show the actual cell frequencies from the data set. However, you may obtain the percentage distribution across each row by highlighting the Percent by Row option.

And to obtain the percent of the total number of observations in the tabulation that are in each individual cell, please highlight the Percent by Table Total option.

5 The default mode is to show the actual cell frequencies from the data set. However, you may obtain the percentage distribution across each row by highlighting the Percent by Row option. To obtain the percentage distribution down every column in your tabulation, highlight the Percent by Column option. And to obtain the percent of the total number of observations in the tabulation that are in each individual cell, please highlight the Percent by Table Total option. Cumulative Options: The default mode of presentation shows cell sizes. If you highlight the Cumulative Option you will see cumulative totals within columns beginning with the row that is at the top of your screen. For example, you might select an age group and tabulate the educational attainment of men and women. If you invoke the Cumulative Option, you will produce a tabulation of those at each educational attainment level plus every lower educational attainment level. If you were tabulating whites and blacks by age and using the Cumulative Option, you would see a display of the number or percentage at a given age plus every younger age group. Total Options: If you have the results of a PDQ-Explore query in the Expert Query window and select the Options menu and then click Total Options, you will see a drop down box with additional options to the immediate right. The default mode of presentation of output is to show the cell frequencies with no column or row totals. If you wish to obtain row totals only they will be displayed to the far right of your window move your cursor to highlight Row. If you wish to obtain column totals only, highlight Column. If you wish to obtain both row and column totals, select Both. The Total Option operates independently of the Percent Option. If you selected the Percent by Row or Percent by Column option you may then choose Total Option Row or Total Option Column to obtain percentage distributions by rows or by columns. To make it easier to view your result, this viewing mode lets you chose which axes you wish to look at, and in what location they should appear. If you have a query setup of two axes, age and sex, for example, you can use the drop down boxes under the Swap Dimension heading to either make the table look like age by sex or sex by age. You can also view just a single row or a column at a time. For example, when looking at a sex by age table, if you want to see age only, you would need to pick the category of sex to view the age axis for. Page 4 12/19/2001

6 In general, you can specify up to three axes using the query setup. Having done so, depending on query type, you may be allowed to view up to three of them simultaneously. In tabulations, you can see as many as three. In summary statistics, you can see up to two axes at once. In all other query types, you can see only one cell in the result array at a time. In spite of the display only showing a particular part of the result, you can still see the rest of the result by adjusting the drop down boxes under the Swap Dimension heading. If you wish to see the result only for Males, for example, you would set whichever axis was setup as sex to the category Males. If the query type and setup allows it, you can also make that axis a row, a column, or a foreach. Axes can also be rearranged just by changing the query setup. But since some queries are time consuming to setup and run, it is useful to be able to change which part of the result you are looking at. This is especially helpful with results that are very large. When results are saved to the workspace, the entire result is saved, regardless of your settings under the Swap Dimension heading. When you choose to export a result, some of the export formats will reflect the Swap Dimension settings. Page 5 12/19/2001

Public Use Microdata Samples

Public Use Microdata Samples Using PDQ Explore Software Grace York University of Michigan Library May 2004 2000 Census Data Tabulations Summary Files 1-4, Equal Employment Opportunity, School District