CQ Congress Collection: Help

Help: Home Page

The CQ Congress Collection home page is the main entry screen into the Web site. It contains the standard navigation that you will find throughout the site, a Quick Search option, as well as the following search options:

Public Policy Legislation	Searches across the text and titles of all documents indexed for a public policy topic, for example, agriculture, national security, transportation.
Members of Congress	Searches across the text and titles of all biographies of members.
CQ Key Votes	Searches across the text and titles of all CQ Key Votes.
The Legislative Branch	Searches across the text and titles of all documents relating to the history, procedures, powers, and structure of Congress.

Site Navigation

1. The top-right navigation bar contains links to general Web site functions or information.

Home	Links to the CQ Congress Collection home page.
About	Links to a description of the CQ Congress Collection and CQ Press.
FAQ/Help	Opens a new browser window containing help descriptions for the page that you are currently viewing.
Log Out	Logs you off the CQ Congress Collection site.

2. The left navigation bar contains links to specific areas of the Web site that may be accessed more easily.

Your Profile	Links to a page that allows you to create your own log-in for saving listings to your personalized Document History and Favorite Documents.
Document History	Links to a list of the last thirty documents visited in the CQ Congress Collection.
Favorite Documents	Links to a list of up to thirty documents saved to "Favorite Documents."
Saved Searches	Links to your list of saved searches.
Search	Links to the basic search screen.
Quick Search	Performs a search based on default search criteria.
Voting Alignment	Links to a page that is an entryway for analyzing voting trends and alignments in Congress.
Interest Group Ratings	Links to a search page that is an entryway to studying the members' voting records as perceived by various interest groups.
Advanced CQ Key Vote Analysis	Links to a search page that is an entryway to studying the "yeas and nays" of members on votes deemed "key" by Congressional Quarterly.
Advanced Member Analysis	Links to a search page that is an entryway to studying the demographics and personal characteristics of members of Congress.
Current Committees	Links to rosters, jurisdictions, and contact information for committees and subcommittees of the current Congress.
Browse Documents by Topic	Links to a browse tree of "Public Policy Legislation" and "The Legislative Branch" topics and documents.
Map of Congress	Links to an interactive map of the United States that illustrates party control of Congress and serves as a point of entry to state delegations and biographies of members.
Congressional Encyclopedia	Links to general summaries of congressional history and contemporary issues.
Congressional Dictionary	Links to a page of congressional terms and their definitions.
Chronology	Links to a time line of major developments in Congress.
Web Links	Links to outside sources of information on Congress.

Quick Search Default Criteria

Quick Search skips the search page and immediately performs a search based on the following default criteria:

on the word or phrase entered in the Quick Search box
across all document text and titles
across all CQ Congress Collection topics (Public Policy Legislation as well as The Legislative Branch)
across all event dates
across all document types
results are sorted by relevancy
lists thirty results per page