Public Affairs Collection: Help

Select a Help topic from the menu at the left. Click on "Help Main Menu" to view other help descriptions and information about the CQ Public Affairs Collection.

General Description

The CQ Public Affairs Collection Home Page is the main entry screen into the website. It contains the standard navigation that you will find throughout the site as well as a browse list of Public Affairs Topics.

Site Navigation

1. The top-right navigation bar contains links to general website functions or information:

Home	Links to the CQ Public Affairs Collection Home Page.
About	Links to a description of the CQ Public Affairs Collection and CQ Press.
Help	Opens a new browser window containing Help descriptions for the page that you are on.
Log Out	Logs you off the site.

2. The left-hand navigation bar contains links to specific areas of the website that may be accessed more often:

Your Profile	Links to a page that allows you to create your own login for saving searches and favorite documents.
Document History	Links to a list of the last 15 documents visited in the CQ Public Affairs Collection.
Favorite Documents	Links to a list of up to 25 of the documents saved as "Favorites."
Saved Searches	Links to a list of searches that you have saved.
Search	Links to the Search Screen.
Quick Search	Performs a search based on default search criteria.
Hot Topics	Displays a browse list of topics containing documents dealing with some of today's most talked about issues.
Public Affairs Topics	Displays a browse list of public affairs topics.
Image Library	Displays a gallery of public domain images related to public affairs topics.
Chronology	Displays a timeline focusing on major events affecting public affairs in the United States beginning with the 20th century and running through present day.
Bibliographies	Displays a list of documents organized by topic. Each document contains a reading list for the public affairs topic. You may choose to view the list of publications in each of the following citation styles: APA, Blue Book, Chicago, and MLA.
Citation Information	Links to a page that describes the citation styles for the CiteNow! feature and links to citation information on the internet.
Organizations	Links to a page that describes how to locate information and addresses on organizations in The CQ Public Affairs Collection.
Web Links	Displays a list of documents organized by topic. Each document contains a description of websites in the public affairs topic.

Quick Search

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

The word or phrase entered in the Quick Search box.
All document text and titles.
All topics and sub-topics.
All document types.
No date limitation. Includes documents without dates.
Sorted by relevancy.
30 results per page.

Public Affairs Topics

Public Affairs Topics are available from the CQ Public Affairs Collection home page. To access the list of Topics, click on "Home" on the top right of the site, or on "Public Affairs Topics" on the left of the site. You may browse documents within a particular category, by clicking on the topic.

Each document within the Public Affairs Collection has been analyzed by the CQ Press editors and assigned to one or more of the category structures listed under "Public Affairs Topics" on the site.

There are 22 main, or "Primary" topics. Each Primary Topic contains a number of more specific, "Secondary" Topics. In some cases, the Secondary Topics are further refined to a third (Tertiary) level topic.