Events, the rightmost popup menu in the darkened area at the top of Ethno, lists events that you have defined. Select one to examine and modify information on that event. While you are examining an event, three popup menus appear as a second line of menus in the darkened area. The second line of menus allows you to go to entities, people, and actions that you have defined. Entities are inanimate objects or places. People are individuals, groups, and animals that instigate actions. Actions are verbs in descriptions of events. Each of the menus has three functions:

• Choosing the top line that says New ... lets you define a new entity, person, or action.
• After you have defined an element, you can choose its name in a popup menu in order to visit a screen relating to that element. The names are listed in alphabetic order.
• Clicking on a radio button at the right of the screen, then choosing an element from a popup menu, adds the element to one of the lists at the right, as described below in the section on Event Frame Coding.

Editable Texts

The four boxes on the left of the screen are editable text fields. Click in a box to get a cursor. Then you may type or edit the contents of the box.

The text field labeled Short name of the event and the text box labeled Event description present the short and long descriptions of the event. The short name has a maximum of 25 characters.

The description of an event has important effects on event structure analyses because the description cues judgments about logical interrelations of events. Usually a more specific description makes it easier to identify logical relations while using the program's linking routine. You can make an event description more specific by identifying more of the elements involved in the event - instrument, alignment of instrument, setting, etc. On the other hand, an event that is described too concretely may never repeat, even though essentially the same thing happens again. Thus, events described too concretely will make an event structure seem more complex than necessary. So you should try to describe an event with considerable specificity, while avoiding details that hold for just one occurrence.

The text box labeled Source text shows the portion of narrative that you selected when defining the event.

The text box labeled Comments is a place where you may type notes regarding the event. The notes are saved and retrieved as part of the model with the Import-Export option on the Operations menu.

Modeling Information

The middle portion of the Event form presents information accumulated while linking events, testing a process model, and developing a generalized model. (These procedures are described in the Help messages on linking and on the chart.)

The box labeled Prerequisites shows the events that must occur before the event being examined can occur.

The box labeled Consequences shows the events that can occur only after the event being examined has occurred.

Double-clicking an event in the Prerequisites box or in the Consequences box brings the clicked event up in the Event form. The new event replaces the event currently being viewed in the Event form.

The box labeled Summarizes shows concrete events that have been summarized by the event being examined.

The box labeled Generalizations shows abstract events that are instantiated by the event being examined.

Clicking on the two checkboxes below the boxes changes parameters of the focal event.

• All prerequisites must occur before the focal event can occur if Disjunctive prerequisites is unchecked. If this item is checked, then occurrence of any one prerequisite enables the focal event.
• The focal event cannot repeat until at least one of its consequences has occurred if Repeats without depletion is unchecked. Activity among consequences is irrelevant for occurrence of the focal event if this item is checked.

The line beginning with the word "linked" shows whether questions have been answered regarding the prerequisites of the event being examined.

Event Frame Coding

Radio buttons and scrollable lists appear at the right side of the screen. The eight categories - Agents, Acts, Objects, Instruments, Alignments, Settings, Products, and Beneficiaries - are for defining the composition of the event.

Agent is the person or group engaging in the action. Act is a verb describing what is happening. Objects are entities or people that change as a result of the action. Instrument is an entity or person or organization which the agent uses to process the object. Alignment is the part of the object or setting where the action is focused, typically the object of a preposition in the event description. Setting is an encompassing entity within which the action is done. Product is the entity or state change produced by the action. Beneficiary is the person to whom the product is transferred for use in a subsequent event; beneficiaries include Experiencers, who are perceivers for whom the event is performed.

Here, for example, is an event and its categorizations.

In the emergency room (setting) the doctor (agent) injected (action) a sedative (object) into the raving man's (object) shoulder (alignment) with a hypodermic (instrument) so the nurse (beneficiary) would have a tranquil patient (product).

Coding Procedures

Codes for the Event-Frame categories are generated by making selections from the Entity, Person, and Action pop-up menus. Follow these steps.

1. Click the radio button for the category you are coding. The button will be highlighted.
2. If coding an action select the appropriate verb from the Action popup menu. Otherwise, select the appropriate inanimate object from the Entity pop-up menu, or the appropriate person from the Person pop-up menu.
3. Your selection will appear as a line in the box of the category you are coding.

Deleting Codes

You can delete an element from an event-frame list by double-clicking on the element.

Adding new entities, people, or actions

An entity or person that is not yet in the pop-up menus has to be added. Do this as follows.

1. Select the top line of the relevant popup menu which says New .... A window for defining an entity, person, or action will appear.
2. Name the element by typing in the Name of ... text field. Press Enter.
3. Click the Return to event button. This returns you to the Event window where you were working. At that point the element you just defined is available in the pop-up menus.

Additional uses of the Entity, Person, and Action screens are described in the Associations help message.

URL: www.indiana.edu/~socpsy/ESA/Events.html