Manual for the Pattern Description of the Time Series, Part 1 Guide to Pattern Description

• NCJ Number: 95825
• Author(s): C R Block
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 74 pages
• Corporate Author: Ottawa Police Planning and Research Section
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This manual introduces the concept of pattern description in time series data and gives guidelines on applying that concept in practice.

Abstract

Time series-pattern description provides concrete and readily understood answers to simple descriptive questions about the general pattern of change over time in a variable. It tells the user, in nonstatistical language, whether the variable generally increased, decreased, or stayed the same during the period in question; whether there was a change in the pattern; and if there was a change, roughly when the change occurred. The pattern description method was developed because criminal justice administrators and policymakers often ask the Illinois Statistical Analysis Center for a simple description of the pattern of change over time in one of the many criminal justice time series-data sets. Conventional methods of time series analysis cannot answer many of these simple descriptive questions. This manual includes detailed instructions for interpreting a pattern description graph and illustrates the instructions with many examples of real criminal justice applications. A separate manual tells the user how to produce pattern description graphs on the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority computer system. (Author summary modified)