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P R O B L E M - S O LV I N G C A S E S I N
M I C RO S O F T ® AC C E S S ™ A N D E XC E L ®

Ellen F. Monk
Joseph A. Brady
Emilio I. Mendelsohn

Australia • Brazil • Mexico • Singapore • United Kingdom • United States

Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product
text may not be available in the eBook version.

Product Director: Lauren Murphy All screenshots, unless otherwise noted, are used with permission from
Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft® is a registered trademark of the Microsoft
Product Manager: Jaymie Falconi Corporation.

Product Assistant: Anna Goulart The authors acknowledge www.fakenamegenerator.com, which can be used
to generate data for case scenarios.
Vice President, Marketing – Science,
Technology, & Math: Jason Sakos
For product information and technology assistance, contact us at
Senior Marketing Director: Michele McTighe Cengage Customer & Sales Support, 1-800-354-9706
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Samantha Best submit all requests online at www.cengage.com/permissions.

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ISBN: 978-0-357-13863-2
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Designer: Lizz Anderson than 125 countries around the world. Find your local representative at
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Notice to the Reader

Publisher does not warrant or guarantee any of the products described herein or perform any independent analysis in connection with
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material.

Printed in the United States of America

Print Number: 01 Print Year: 2019

—JAB

To my problem-solving students.

—EFM

To our little bean: Although we never met you, we loved you all the same. Mom and Dad

—EIM

Preface ix

Pa r t 1 : Da tab as e C as e s U sing M icrosoft Access

Tutorial A
Database Design 3

Tutorial B
Microsoft Access 13

Case 1
Preliminary Case: Dog Hikes 53

Case 2
The Parks and Recreation Database 59

Case 3
The Senior Concierge Database 67

Case 4
The Fresh Fish Distributor Database 73

Case 5
The Volunteer Fire Company Database 79

Pa r t 2 : D ec is io n S u p p o r t C ases Using M icrosoft Excel Scenario

Man ag er

Tutorial C
Building a Decision Support System in Excel 89

Case 6
The Ski Resort Investment Decision 113

Case 7
The College Town Budget 121

Pa r t 3 : De c is io n S u p p o r t C ases Using M icrosoft Excel Solver

Tutorial D
Building a Decision Support System Using Microsoft Excel Solver 133

Case 8
Rose Tree Regional Airline 151

Case 9
The Auto Maker Product Mix Problem 163

Pa r t 4 : I nteg ratio n C a s e s Using M icrosoft Access and Excel

Case 10
The Donation Letter Analysis 173

Case 11
San Francisco Fire Incidents 183

Case 12
San Francisco Fire Incidents: Advanced Analysis 191

Pa r t 5 : Adva n ce d S kills U sing M icrosoft Excel

Tutorial E
Guidance for Excel Cases 203

Index 219

For more than two decades, we have taught MIS courses at the university level. From the start, we
wanted to use good computer-based case studies for the database and decision-support portions of our
courses.
At first, we could not find a casebook that met our needs! This surprised us because we thought our
requirements were not unreasonable. First, we wanted cases that asked students to think about real-
world business situations. Second, we wanted cases that provided students with hands-on experience,
using the kind of software that they had learned to use in their computer literacy courses—and that they
would later use in business. Third, we wanted cases that would strengthen students’ ability to analyze
a problem, examine alternative solutions, and implement a solution using software. Undeterred by the
lack of casebooks, we wrote our own for Cengage.
This is the sixteenth casebook we have written for Cengage. The cases are all new, and the tutorials
have been updated using Microsoft Office 2019.
As with our prior casebooks, we include tutorials that prepare students for the cases, which are chal-
lenging but doable. The cases are organized to help students think about the logic of each case’s business
problem and then about how to use the software to solve the business problem. The cases fit well in an
undergraduate MIS course, an MBA information systems course, or a computer science course devoted
to business-oriented programming.
To date we have written nearly 200 cases. We are proud to say that all of them have tried to teach
students how to use software to help them make good business decisions. The business computing envi-
ronment continues to evolve, and our cases should follow that evolution. To stay current, students need
to learn a broader range of data analysis activities. Therefore, we have increased the range of topics cov-
ered in our casebook. This edition contains instruction and a case on the differences between handling
operational data and analytical data. We have placed greater emphasis throughout the Excel portion of
the text on the various uses of pivot tables. In the future, we intend to further increase the range of data
analysis topics we cover. We welcome feedback from instructors on this process. If there are additional
topics you want to see covered in future editions or topics that should be covered differently, let us
know! Please contact Jaymie Falconi, our product manager at Cengage.

B O O K O R G A N I Z AT I O N
The book is organized into five parts:
• Database cases using Access
• Decision support cases using the Excel Scenario Manager
• Decision support cases using Excel Solver
• Integration cases and data analysis using Access and Excel
• Advanced Excel skills
Part 1 begins with two tutorials that prepare students for the Access case studies. Parts 2 and 3 each
begin with a tutorial that prepares students for the Excel case studies. All four tutorials provide students
with practice in using the software’s features—the kind of support that other books about Access and
Excel do not provide. Part 4 challenges students to use both Access and Excel to find a solution to a
business problem. Part 5 is a tutorial about advanced skills students might need to complete some of the
Excel cases. The next sections explore these parts of the book in more depth.

Part 1: Database Cases Using Microsoft Access

This section begins with two tutorials and then presents five case studies.

Tutorial A: Database Design

This tutorial helps students understand how to set up tables to create a database without requiring
students to learn formal analysis and design methods, such as data normalization.

Tutorial B: Microsoft Access

The second tutorial teaches students the more advanced features of Access queries and reports—
features that students will need to know to complete the cases.

Cases 1–5
Five database cases follow Tutorials A and B. The students must use the Access database in each case
to create forms, queries, and reports that help management. The first case is an easier “warm-up” case.
The next four cases require more effort to design the database and implement the results.

Part 2: Decision Support Cases Using Microsoft Excel Scenario Manager

This section has one tutorial and two decision support cases that require the use of the Excel Scenario
Manager.

Tutorial C: Building a Decision Support System in Excel

This section begins with a tutorial that uses Excel to explain decision support and fundamental c oncepts
of spreadsheet design. The case emphasizes the use of Scenario Manager to organize the output of
multiple “what-if” scenarios.

Cases 6–7
Students can complete these two cases with Scenario Manager. In each case, students must use Excel
to model two or more solutions to a problem. Students then use the model outputs to identify and
document the preferred solution in a memo.

Part 3: Decision Support Cases Using Microsoft Excel Solver

This section has one tutorial and two decision support cases that require the use of Excel Solver.

Tutorial D: Building a Decision Support System Using Microsoft Excel Solver

This section begins with a tutorial for using Excel Solver, a powerful decision support tool for solving
optimization problems.

Cases 8–9
Students use the Excel Solver tool in each case to analyze alternatives and identify and document the
preferred solution.

Part 4: Integration Cases Using Microsoft Access and Excel

Cases 10–12
These cases integrate Access and Excel. In Case 10, students will analyze data using Access queries, an
Excel table, and an Excel pivot table. Cases 11 and 12 show students how to share data between Access
and Excel to solve problems and to use the fundamentals of data analysis. For example, Case 12 illus-
trates the basic differences between operational and analytical data and how to minimize operational
impacts during data analysis.

Part 5: Advanced Skills Using Microsoft Excel

This part contains one tutorial that focuses on using advanced techniques in Excel.

Tutorial E: Guidance for Excel Cases

Some cases may require the use of Excel techniques that are not discussed in other tutorials or cases
in this casebook. For example, techniques for using tables and pivot tables are explained in Tutorial E
rather than in the cases themselves.

Note that previous editions of the book included a Tutorial F for guidance on giving an oral presentation.
This tutorial is now available at the Cengage Web site. To access the tutorial, see “Using the Cases and
Tutorials” below.

INDIVIDUAL CASE DESIGN

The format of the cases uses the following template:
• Each case begins with a Preview and an overview of the tasks.
• The next section, Preparation, tells students what they need to do or know to complete the case
successfully. Again, the tutorials also prepare students for the cases.
• The third section, Background, provides the business context that frames the case. The back-
ground of each case models situations that require the kinds of thinking and analysis that stu-
dents will need in the business world.
• The Assignment sections are generally organized to help students develop their analyses.
• The last section, Deliverables, lists the finished materials that students must hand in: printouts,
a memorandum, and files. The list is similar to the deliverables that a business manager might
demand.

USING THE CASES AND TUTORIALS

We have successfully used cases like these in our undergraduate MIS courses. We usually begin the
semester with Access database instruction. We assign the Access database tutorials and then a case to
each student. Then, to teach students how to use the Excel decision support system, we do the same
thing: We assign a tutorial and then a case.
Some instructors have asked for access to extra cases, especially in the second semester of a school
year. For example, they assigned the integration case in the fall, and they need another one for the
spring. To meet this need, we have set up an online “Hall of Fame” that features some of our favorite
cases from prior editions. These password-protected cases are available to instructors on the Instructor
Companion Site for this text. Go to www.cengage.com to log in to your instructor account and search
for this textbook by title, author, or ISBN. Note that the cases are in Microsoft Office 2016 format.

T E C H N I CA L I N F O R M AT I O N
The cases in this textbook were written using Microsoft Office 2019, and the textbook was tested
for quality assurance using the Windows 10 operating system, Microsoft Access 2019, and Microsoft
Excel 2019.

DATA F I L E S A N D S O L U T I O N F I L E S
We have created “starter” data files as needed for some of the Excel cases, so students need not spend
time typing in the spreadsheet skeleton. Other cases ask students to load Access starter files. All of these
files are on the Instructor and Student Companion Sites for this text. To access the Instructor or Student
Companion Site, go to www.cengage.com, log in to your account, and search for this textbook by title,
author, or ISBN. You are granted a license to copy the data files to any computer or computer network
used by people who have purchased this textbook.

Solutions to the material in the text are available to instructors on the Instructor Companion Site
for this text at www.cengage.com. Search for this textbook by title, author, or ISBN. The solutions are
password protected.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to give many thanks to the team at Cengage, including our product manager, Jaymie Falconi;
our developmental editor, Dan Seiter; our technical editor, John Freitas; and our content manager,
Michele Stulga. As always, we acknowledge our students’ diligent work.

TUTORIAL A
Database Design, 3

TUTORIAL B
Microsoft Access, 13

CASE 1
Preliminary Case: Dog Hikes, 53

CASE 2
The Parks and Recreation Database, 59

CASE 3
The Senior Concierge Database, 67

CASE 4
The Fresh Fish Distributor Database, 73

CASE 5
The Volunteer Fire Company Database, 79

REVIEW OF TERMINOLOGY
You will begin by reviewing some basic terms that will be used throughout this textbook. In Access, a database
is a group of related objects that are saved in one file. An Access object can be a table, form, query, or report.
You can identify an Access database file by its suffix, .accdb.
A table consists of data that is arrayed in rows and columns. A row of data is called a record. A column
of data is called a field. Thus, a record is a set of related fields. The fields in a table should be related to one
another in some way. For example, a company might want to keep its employee data together by creating a
database table called Employee. That table would contain data fields about employees, such as their names
and addresses. It would not have data fields about the company’s customers; that data would go in a Customer
table.
A field’s values have a data type that is declared when the table is defined. Thus, when data is entered
into the database, the software knows how to interpret each entry. Data types in Access include the following:
• Text for words
• Integer for whole numbers
• Double for numbers that have a decimal value
• Currency for numbers that represent dollars and cents
• Yes/No for variables that have only two values (such as 1/0, on/off, yes/no, and true/false)
• Date/Time for variables that are dates or times
Each database table should have a primary key field—a field in which each record has a unique value. For
example, in an Employee table, a field called Employee Identification Number (EIN) could serve as a primary
key. (This assumes that each employee is given a number when hired and that these numbers are not reused
later.) Sometimes, a table does not have a single field whose values are all different. In that case, two or more
fields are combined into a compound primary key. The combination of the fields’ values is unique.
Database tables should be logically related to one another. For example, suppose a company has an
Employee table with fields for EIN, Name, Address, and Telephone Number. For payroll purposes, the com-
pany has an Hours Worked table with a field that summarizes Labor Hours for individual employees. The rela-
tionship between the Employee table and Hours Worked table needs to be established in the database, so you
can determine the number of hours worked by any employee. To create this relationship, you include the pri-
mary key field from the Employee table (EIN) as a field in the Hours Worked table. In the Hours Worked table,
the EIN field is then called a foreign key because it’s from a “foreign” table.
In Access, data can be entered directly into a table, or it can be entered into a form, which then inserts
the data into a table. A form is a database object that is created from an existing table to make the process of
entering data more user-friendly.
A query is the database equivalent of a question that is posed about data in a table (or tables). For
example, suppose a manager wants to know the names of employees who have worked for the company for
more than five years. A query could be designed to search the Employee table for the information. The query
would be run, and its output would answer the question.
Queries can be designed to search multiple tables at a time. For this to work, the tables must be
connected by a join operation, which links tables on the values in a field that they have in common.
The common field acts as a “hinge” for the joined tables; when the query is run, the query generator treats
the joined tables as one large table.

In Access, queries that answer a question are called select queries because they select relevant data
from the database records. Queries can also be designed to change data in records, add a record to the end
of a table, or delete entire records from a table. These queries are called update, append, and delete queries,
respectively.
Access has a report generator that can be used to format a table’s data or a query’s output.

DATABASE DESIGN
Designing a database involves determining which tables belong in the database and then creating the fields
that belong in each table. This section begins with an introduction to key database design concepts, then dis-
cusses design rules you should use when building a database. First, the following key concepts are defined:
• Entities
• Relationships
• Attributes

Database Design Concepts

Computer scientists have highly formalized ways of documenting a database’s logic. Learning their notations
and mechanics can be time-consuming and difficult. In fact, doing so usually takes a good portion of a systems
analysis and design course. This tutorial will teach you database design by emphasizing practical business
knowledge; the approach should enable you to design serviceable databases quickly. Your instructor may add
more formal techniques.
A database models the logic of an organization’s operation, so your first task is to understand the opera-
tion. You can talk to managers and workers, make your own observations, and look at business documents,
such as sales records. Your goal is to identify the business’s “entities” (sometimes called objects). An entity is
a thing or event that the database will contain. Every entity has characteristics, called attributes, and one or
more relationships to other entities. Let’s take a closer look.

Entities
As previously mentioned, an entity is a tangible thing or an event. The reason for identifying entities is that
an entity eventually becomes a table in the database. Entities that are things are easy to identify. For exam-
ple, consider a car rental agency. The database for the agency would probably need to contain the names
of vehicles and the names of customers who rent them, so you would have one entity named Vehicles and
another named Customer.
In contrast, entities that are events can be more difficult to identify, probably because they are more con-
ceptual. However, events are real, and they are important. In the rental agency example, one event would be
Vehicle Rental and another event would be Hours Worked by employees.
In general, your analysis of an organization’s operations is made easier when you realize that organiza-
tions usually have physical entities such as these:
• Employees
• Customers
• Inventory (products or services)
• Suppliers
Thus, the database for most organizations would have a table for each of these entities. Your analysis also
can be made easier by knowing that organizations engage in transactions internally (within the company) and
externally (with the outside world). Such transactions are explained in an introductory accounting course, but
most people understand them from events that occur in daily life. Consider the following examples:
• Organizations generate revenue from sales or interest earned. Revenue-generating transactions
include event entities called Sales and Interest Earned.
• Organizations incur expenses from paying hourly employees and purchasing materials from sup-
pliers. Hours Worked and Purchases are event entities in the databases of most organizations.
Thus, identifying entities is a matter of observing what happens in an organization. Your powers of obser-
vation are aided by knowing what entities exist in the databases of most organizations.

Relationships
As an analyst building a database, you should consider the relationship of each entity to the other entities you
have identified. For example, a college database might contain entities for Student, Course, and Section to
contain data about each. A relationship between Student and Section could be expressed as “Students enroll
in sections.”
An analyst also must consider the cardinality of any relationship. Cardinality can be one-to-one, one-to-
many, or many-to-many:
• In a one-to-one relationship, one instance of the first entity is related to just one instance of the
second entity.
• In a one-to-many relationship, one instance of the first entity is related to many instances of the
second entity, but each instance of the second entity is related to only one instance of the first.
• In a many-to-many relationship, one instance of the first entity is related to many instances of
the second entity, and one instance of the second entity is related to many instances of the first.
For a more concrete understanding of cardinality, consider again the college database with the Student,
Course, and Section entities. The university catalog shows that a course such as Accounting 101 can have
more than one section: 01, 02, 03, 04, and so on. Thus, you can observe the following relationships:
• The relationship between the entities Course and Section is one-to-many. Each course has many
sections, but each section is associated with just one course.
• The relationship between Student and Section is many-to-many. Each student can be in more
than one section, because each student can take more than one course. Also, each section has
more than one student.
Thinking about relationships and their cardinalities may seem tedious to you. However, as you work
through the cases in this text, you will see that this type of analysis can be valuable in designing databases. In
the case of many-to-many relationships, you should determine the tables a given database needs; in the case
of one-to-many relationships, you should decide which fields the tables need to share.

Attributes
An attribute is a characteristic of an entity. You identify attributes of an entity because attributes
become a table’s fields. If an entity can be thought of as a noun, an attribute can be considered an
adjective that describes the noun. Continuing with the college database example, consider the Student
entity. Students have names, so Last Name would be an attribute of the Student entity and therefore
a field in the Student table. First Name would be another attribute, as well as Address, Phone Number,
and other descriptive fields.
Sometimes, it can be difficult to tell the difference between an attribute and an entity, but one good way
is to ask whether more than one attribute is possible for each entity. If more than one instance is possible,
but you do not know the number in advance, you are working with an entity. For example, assume that a
student could have a maximum of two addresses—one for home and one for college. You could specify attrib-
utes Address 1 and Address 2. Next, consider that you might not know the number of student addresses in
advance, meaning that all addresses have to be recorded. In that case, you would not know how many fields
to set aside in the Student table for addresses. Therefore, you would need a separate Student Addresses table
(entity) that would show any number of addresses for a given student.

Database Design Rules

As described previously, your first task in database design is to understand the logic of the business situation.
Once you understand this logic, you are ready to build the database. To create a context for learning about
database design, look at a hypothetical business operation and its database needs.

Example: The Talent Agency

Suppose you have been asked to build a database for a talent agency that books musical bands into nightclubs.
The agent needs a database to keep track of the agency’s transactions and to answer day-to-day questions. For
example, a club manager often wants to know which bands are available on a certain date at a certain time, or

wants to know the agent’s fee for a certain band. The agent may want to see a list of all band members and the
instrument each person plays, or a list of all bands that have three members.
Suppose that you have talked to the agent and have observed the agency’s business operation. You con-
clude that your database needs to reflect the following facts:
1. A booking is an event in which a certain band plays in a particular club on a particular date,
starting and ending at certain times and performing for a specific fee. A band can play more than
once a day. The Heartbreakers, for example, could play at the East End Cafe in the afternoon and
then at the West End Cafe on the same night. For each booking, the club pays the talent agent.
The agent keeps a 5 percent fee and then gives the remainder of the payment to the band.
2. Each band has at least two members and an unlimited maximum number of members. The agent
notes a telephone number of just one band member, which is used as the band’s contact number.
No two bands have the same name or telephone number.
3. Band member names are not unique. For example, two bands could each have a member named
Sally Smith.
4. The agent keeps track of just one instrument that each band member plays. For the purpose of
this database, “vocals” are considered an instrument.
5. Each band has a desired fee. For example, the Lightmetal band might want $700 per booking and
would expect the agent to try to get at least that amount.
6. Each nightclub has a name, an address, and a contact person. The contact person has a tele-
phone number that the agent uses to call the club. No two clubs have the same name, contact
person, or telephone number. Each club has a target fee. The contact person will try to get the
agent to accept that fee for a band’s appearance.
7. Some clubs feed the band members for free; others do not.
Before continuing with this tutorial, you might try to design the agency’s database on your own. Ask your-
self: What are the entities? Recall that business databases usually have Customer, Employee, and Inventory
entities, as well as an entity for the event that generates revenue transactions. Each entity becomes a table in
the database. What are the relationships among the entities? For each entity, what are its attributes? For each
table, what is the primary key?

Six Database Design Rules

Assume that you have gathered information about the business situation in the talent agency example. Now
you want to identify the tables required for the database and the fields needed in each table. Observe the fol-
lowing six rules:
Rule 1: You do not need a table for the business. The database represents the entire business. Thus, in the
example, Agent and Agency are not entities.
Rule 2: Identify the entities in the business description. Look for typical things and events that will become
tables in the database. In the talent agency example, you should be able to observe the following entities:
• Things: The product (inventory for sale) is Band. The customer is Club.
• Events: The revenue-generating transaction is Bookings.
You might ask yourself: Is there an Employee entity? Isn’t Instrument an entity? Those issues will be
discussed as the rules are explained.
Rule 3: Look for relationships among the entities. Look for one-to-many relationships between entities.
The relationship between those entities must be established in the tables, using a foreign key. For details, see
the following discussion in Rule 4 about the relationship between Band and Band Member.
Look for many-to-many relationships between entities. Each of these relationships requires a third entity
that associates the two entities in the relationship. Recall the many-to-many relationship from the college
database scenario that involved Student and Section entities. To display the enrollment of specific students
in specific sections, a third table would be required. The mechanics of creating such a table are described in
Rule 4 during the discussion of the relationship between Band and Club.

Rule 4: Look for attributes of each entity and designate a primary key. As previously mentioned, you
should think of the entities in your database as nouns. You should then create a list of adjectives that describe
those nouns. These adjectives are the attributes that will become the table’s fields. After you have identified
fields for each table, you should check to see whether a field has unique values. If such a field exists, designate
it as the primary key field; otherwise, designate a compound primary key.
In the talent agency example, the attributes, or fields, of the Band entity are Band Name, Band Phone
Number, and Desired Fee, as shown in Figure A-1. Assume that no two bands have the same name, so the pri-
mary key field can be Band Name. The data type of each field is shown.

BAND

Field Name Data Type

Band Name (primary key) Text

Band Phone Number Text

Desired Fee Currency

FIGURE A-1 The Band table and its fields

Two Band records are shown in Figure A-2.

Band Name (primary key) Band Phone Number Desired Fee

Heartbreakers 981 831 1765 $800

Lightmetal 981 831 2000 $700

FIGURE A-2 Records in the Band table

If two bands might have the same name, Band Name would not be a good primary key, so a different
unique identifier would be needed. Such situations are common. Most businesses have many types of inven-
tory, and duplicate names are possible. The typical solution is to assign a number to each product to use as the
primary key field. A college could have more than one faculty member with the same name, so each faculty
member would be assigned an EIN. Similarly, banks assign a personal identification number (PIN) for each
depositor. Each automobile produced by a car manufacturer gets a unique vehicle identification number (VIN).
Most businesses assign a number to each sale, called an invoice number. (The next time you go to a grocery
store, note the number on your receipt. It will be different from the number on the next customer’s receipt.)
At this point, you might be wondering why Band Member would not be an attribute of Band. The answer
is that, although you must record each band member, you do not know in advance how many members are in
each band. Therefore, you do not know how many fields to allocate to the Band table for members. (Another
way to think about band members is that they are the agency’s employees, in effect. Databases for organiza-
tions usually have an Employee entity.) You should create a Band Member table with the attributes Member
ID Number, Member Name, Band Name, Instrument, and Phone. A Member ID Number field is needed because
member names may not be unique. The table and its fields are shown in Figure A-3.

BAND MEMBER

Field Name Data Type

Member ID Number (primary key) Text

Member Name Text

Band Name (foreign key) Text

Instrument Text

Phone Text

FIGURE A-3 The Band Member table and its fields

Note in Figure A-3 that the phone number is classified as a Text data type because the field values will
not be used in an arithmetic computation. The benefit is that Text data type values take up fewer bytes than
Numerical or Currency data type values; therefore, the file uses less storage space. You should also use the
Text data type for number values such as zip codes.
Five records in the Band Member table are shown in Figure A-4.

Member ID Number (primary key) Member Name Band Name Instrument Phone

0001 Jamal Marshall Heartbreakers Guitar 981 444 1111

0002 Chantal Marshall Heartbreakers Vocals 981 444 1234

0003 Tirsa Abboud Heartbreakers Keyboard 981 555 1199

0004 Diego Flores Lightmetal Sax 981 888 1654

0005 Sue Hoopes Lightmetal Piano 981 888 1765

FIGURE A-4 Records in the Band Member table

You can include Instrument as a field in the Band Member table because the agent records only one
instrument for each band member. Thus, you can use the instrument as a way to describe a band member,
much like the phone number is part of the description. Phone could not be the primary key because two
members might share a telephone and because members might change their numbers, making database
administration more difficult.
You might ask why Band Name is included in the Band Member table. The common-sense reason is that
you did not include the Member Name in the Band table. You must relate bands and members somewhere,
and the Band Member table is the place to do it.
To think about this relationship in another way, consider the cardinality of the relationship between Band
and Band Member. It is a one-to-many relationship: one band has many members, but each member in the
database plays in just one band. You establish such a relationship in the database by using the primary key
field of one table as a foreign key in the other table. In Band Member, the foreign key Band Name is used to
establish the relationship between the member and his or her band.
The attributes of the Club entity are Club Name, Address, Contact Name, Club Phone Number, Preferred
Fee, and Feed Band?. The Club table can define the Club entity, as shown in Figure A-5.

CLUB

Field Name Data Type

Club Name (primary key) Text

Address Text

Contact Name Text

Club Phone Number Text

Preferred Fee Currency

Feed Band? Yes/No

FIGURE A-5 The Club table and its fields

Two records in the Club table are shown in Figure A-6.

Club Name (primary key) Address Contact Name Club Phone Number Preferred Fee Feed Band?

East End 1 Duce St. Neev Kalb 981 444 8877 $600 Yes

West End 99 Duce St. Vera Kaan 981 555 0011 $650 No

FIGURE A-6 Records in the Club table

You might wonder why Bands Booked into Club (or a similar name) is not an attribute of the Club table.
There are two reasons. First, you do not know in advance how many bookings a club will have, so the value
cannot be an attribute. Second, Bookings is the agency’s revenue-generating transaction, an event entity, and
you need a table for that business transaction. Consider the booking transaction next.
You know that the talent agent books a certain band into a certain club for a specific fee on a certain date,
starting and ending at a specific time. From that information, you can see that the attributes of the Bookings
entity are Band Name, Club Name, Booking Date, Start Time, End Time, and Fee. The Bookings table and its
fields are shown in Figure A-7.

BOOKINGS

Field Name Data Type

Band Name (foreign key) Text

Club Name (foreign key) Text

Booking Date Date/Time

Start Time Date/Time

End Time Date/Time

Fee Currency

FIGURE A-7 The Bookings table and its fields—and no designation of a primary key

Some records in the Bookings table are shown in Figure A-8.

Band Name Club Name Booking Date Start Time End Time Fee

Heartbreakers East End 11/21/20 21:30 23:30 $800

Heartbreakers East End 11/22/20 21:00 23:30 $750

Heartbreakers West End 11/28/20 19:00 21:00 $500

Lightmetal East End 11/21/20 18:00 20:00 $700

Lightmetal West End 11/22/20 19:00 21:00 $750

FIGURE A-8 Records in the Bookings table

Note that no single field is guaranteed to have unique values, because each band is likely to be booked
many times and each club might be used many times. Furthermore, each date and time can appear more than
once. Thus, no one field can be the primary key.
If a table does not have a single primary key field, you can make a compound primary key whose field
values will be unique when taken together. Because a band can be in only one place at a time, one possible
solution is to create a compound key from the Band Name, Booking Date, and Start Time fields. An alter-
native solution is to create a compound primary key from the Club Name, Booking Date, and Start Time
fields.

If you don’t want a compound key, you could create a field called Booking Number. Each booking would
then have its own unique number, similar to an invoice number.
You can also think about this event entity in a different way. Over time, a band plays in many clubs,
and each club hires many bands. Thus, Band and Club have a many-to-many relationship, which signals
the need for a table between the two entities. A Bookings table would associate the Band and Club tables.
You implement an associative table by including the primary keys from the two tables that are associ-
ated. In this case, the primary keys from the Band and Club tables are included as foreign keys in the
Bookings table.
Rule 5: Avoid data redundancy. You should not include extra (redundant) fields in a table. Redundant fields
take up extra disk space and lead to data entry errors because the same value must be entered in multiple
tables, increasing the chance of a keystroke error. In large databases, keeping track of multiple instances of
the same data is nearly impossible, so contradictory data entries become a problem.
Consider this example: Why wouldn’t Club Phone Number be included in the Bookings table as a field?
After all, the agent might have to call about a last-minute booking change and could quickly look up the num-
ber in the Bookings table. Assume that the Bookings table includes Booking Number as the primary key and
Club Phone Number as a field. Figure A-9 shows the Bookings table with the additional field.

BOOKINGS

Field Name Data Type

Booking Number (primary key) Text

Band Name (foreign key) Text

Club Name (foreign key) Text

Club Phone Number Text

Booking Date Date/Time

Start Time Date/Time

End Time Date/Time

Fee Currency

FIGURE A-9 The Bookings table with an unnecessary field—Club Phone Number

The fields Booking Date, Start Time, End Time, and Fee logically depend on the Booking Number primary
key—they help define the booking. Band Name and Club Name are foreign keys and are needed to establish
the relationship between the Band, Club, and Bookings tables. But what about Club Phone Number? It is not
defined by the Booking Number. It is defined by Club Name—in other words, it is a function of the club, not
of the booking. Thus, the Club Phone Number field does not belong in the Bookings table. It is already in the
Club table.
Perhaps you can see the practical data-entry problem of including Club Phone Number in Bookings. Sup-
pose a club changed its contact phone number. The agent could easily change the number one time, in the
Club table. However, the agent would need to remember which other tables contained the field and change
the values there too. In a small database, this task might not be difficult, but in larger databases, having
redundant fields in many tables makes such maintenance difficult, which means that redundant data is often
incorrect.
You might object by saying, “What about all of those foreign keys? Aren’t they redundant?” In a sense,
they are. But they are needed to establish the one-to-many relationship between one entity and another, as
discussed previously.
Rule 6: Do not include a field if it can be calculated from other fields. A calculated field is made using the
query generator. Thus, the agent’s fee is not included in the Bookings table because it can be calculated by
query (here, 5 percent multiplied by the booking fee).

The Talent Agency Tables in Microsoft Access

The previous sections and figures describe the talent agency database tables, but the relationships between
the tables might be more clear in a graphical representation, which you can create in Microsoft Access (see
Figure A-10).

FIGURE A-10 Graphical view of talent agency tables

In Tutorial B, you will learn how to define a table in Access—in other words, you will input the fields and
their data types and designate the table’s primary key. Tutorial B also explains how to query tables graphically
in Access.
Figure A-10 shows the talent agency’s tables as they would be used in the Access query generator. The
relationships between tables are indicated by the links between the tables. For example, the Band Name field
is the primary key in the Band table and a foreign key in the Band Member table. The two tables are linked by
a common field to demonstrate that a band member is partially described by the name of a band. In a similar
way, a club’s name partially describes Bookings, and the two tables can be linked by a common field, Club
Name.

PRACTICE DATABASE DESIGN PROBLEM

Imagine that your town library wants to keep track of its business in a database, and that you have been called
in to build the database. You talk to the town librarian, review the old paper-based records, and watch people
use the library for a few days. You learn the following about the library:
1. Any resident of the town can get a library card simply by asking for one. The library considers
each cardholder a member of the library.
2. The librarian wants to be able to contact members by telephone and by email. She calls mem-
bers when books are overdue or when requested materials become available. She likes to email
a thank-you note to each patron on his or her anniversary of becoming a member of the library.
Without a database, contacting members efficiently can be difficult; for example, multiple mem-
bers can have the same name. Also, a parent and a child might have the same first and last name,
live at the same address, and share a phone.
3. The librarian tries to keep track of each member’s reading interests. When new books come in,
the librarian alerts members whose interests match those books. For example, long-time member
Sue Doaks is interested in reading Western novels, growing orchids, and baking bread. There must
be some way to match her interests with available books. One complication is that, although the
librarian wants to track all of a member’s reading interests, she wants to classify each book as
being in just one category of interest. For example, the classic gardening book Orchids of France
would be classified as a book about orchids or a book about France, but not both.

4. The library stocks thousands of books. Each book has a title and any number of authors. Also,
more than one book in the library might have the same title. Similarly, multiple authors might
have the same name.
5. A writer could be the author of more than one book.
6. A book will be checked out repeatedly as time goes on. For example, Orchids of France could be
checked out by one member in March, by another member in July, and by another member in
September.
7. The library must be able to identify whether a book is checked out.
8. A member can check out any number of books in one visit. Also, a member might visit the
library more than once a day to check out books.
9. All books that are checked out are due back in two weeks, with no exceptions. The librarian
would like to have an automated way of generating an overdue book list each day so she can tele-
phone offending members.
10. The library has a number of employees. Each employee has a job title. The librarian is paid a
salary, but other employees are paid by the hour. Employees clock in and out each day. Assume
that all employees work only one shift per day and that all are paid weekly. Pay is deposited
directly into an employee’s checking account—no checks are hand-delivered. The database
needs to include the librarian and all other employees.
Design the library’s database, following the rules set forth in this tutorial. Your instructor will specify the
format of your work. Here are a few hints in the form of questions:
• A book can have more than one author. An author can write more than one book. How would
you describe the relationship between books and authors?
• The library lends books for free, of course. If you were to think of checking out a book as a sales
transaction for zero revenue, how would you handle the library’s revenue-generating event?
• A member can borrow any number of books at one checkout. A book can be checked out more
than once. How would you describe the relationship between checkouts and books?

AT THE KEYBOARD
Open Access. Click the Blank database icon from the templates list. Name the database Employee. Click the
file folder next to the filename to browse for the folder where you want to save the file. Click the new folder,
click Open, and then click OK. Otherwise, your file will be saved automatically in the Documents folder. Click
the Create button.
A portion of your opening screen should resemble the screen shown in Figure B-1.

FIGURE B-1 Entering data in Datasheet view

When you create a table, Access opens it in Datasheet view by default. Because you will use Design view
to build your tables, close the new table by clicking the X in the upper-right corner of the table window that
corresponds to Close “Table1.” You are now on the Home tab in the Database window of Access, as shown in
Figure B-2. From this screen, you can create or change objects.

FIGURE B-2 The Database window Home tab in Access

CREATING TABLES
Your database will contain data about employees, their wage rates, and the hours they worked.

Defining Tables
In the Database window, build three new tables using the following instructions.

AT THE KEYBOARD
Defining the Employee Table
This table contains permanent data about employees. To create the table, click the Create tab and then click
Table Design in the Tables group. The table’s fields are Last Name, First Name, Employee ID, Street Address,
City, State, Zip, Date Hired, and US Citizen. The Employee ID field is the primary key field. Change the
lengths of Short Text fields from the default 255 spaces to more appropriate lengths; for example, the Last
Name field might be 30 spaces, and the Zip field might be 10 spaces. Your completed definition should resem-
ble the one shown in Figure B-3.

FIGURE B-3 Fields in the Employee table

When you finish, click the File tab, select Save As, select Save Object As, click the Save As button, and
then enter a name for the table. In this example, the table is named Employee. (It is a coincidence that the
Employee table has the same name as its database file.) After entering the name, click OK in the Save As
window. Close the table by clicking the Close button (X) that corresponds to the Employee table.

Defining the Wage Data Table

This table contains permanent data about employees and their wage rates. The table’s fields are Employee
ID, Wage Rate, and Salaried. The Employee ID field is the primary key field. Use the data types shown in
Figure B-4. Your definition should resemble the one shown in Figure B-4.

FIGURE B-4 Fields in the Wage Data table

Click the File tab and then select Save As, select Save Object As, and click the Save As button to save the
table definition. Name the table Wage Data.

Defining the Hours Worked Table

The purpose of this table is to record the number of hours that employees work each week during the year.
The table’s three fields are Employee ID (which has a Short Text data type), Week # (number–long integer),
and Hours (number–double). The Employee ID and Week # are the compound keys.
In the following example, the employee with ID number 08965 worked 40 hours in Week 1 of the year and
52 hours in Week 2.

Employee ID Week # Hours

08965 1 40

08965 2 52

Note that no single field can be the primary key field because 08965 is an entry for each week. In other
words, if this employee works each week of the year, 52 records will have the same Employee ID value
at the end of the year. Thus, Employee ID values will not distinguish records. No other single field can
distinguish these records either, because other employees will have worked during the same week number and
some employees will have worked the same number of hours. For example, 40 hours—which corresponds to a
full-time workweek—would be a common entry for many weeks.
All of this presents a problem because a table must have a primary key field in Access. The solution is to
use a compound primary key; that is, use values from more than one field to create a combined field that will
distinguish records. The best compound key to use for the current example consists of the Employee ID field
and the Week # field, because as each person works each week, the week number changes. In other words,
there is only one combination of Employee ID 08965 and Week # 1. Because those values can occur in only
one record, the combination distinguishes that record from all others.
The first step of setting a compound key is to highlight the fields in the key. Those fields must appear one
after the other in the table definition screen. (Plan ahead for that format.) As an alternative, you can highlight
one field, hold down the Control key, and highlight the next field.

AT THE KEYBOARD
In the Hours Worked table, click the first field’s left prefix area (known as the row selector), hold down the
mouse button, and drag down to highlight the names of all fields in the compound primary key. Your screen
should resemble the one shown in Figure B-5.

FIGURE B-5 Selecting fields for the compound primary key for the Hours Worked table

Now click the Key icon. Your screen should resemble the one shown in Figure B-6.

FIGURE B-6 The compound primary key for the Hours Worked table

You have created the compound primary key and finished defining the table. Click the File tab and then
select Save As, select Save Object As, and click the Save As button to save the table as Hours Worked.

Adding Records to a Table

At this point, you have set up the skeletons of three tables. The tables have no data records yet. If you printed
the tables now, you would only see column headings (the field names). The most direct way to enter data into
a table is to double-click the table’s name in the navigation pane at the left side of the screen and then type
the data directly into the cells.

NOTE
To display and open the database objects, Access 2019 uses a navigation pane, which is on the left side of the Access
window.

AT THE KEYBOARD
In the navigation pane, double-click the Employee table. Your data entry screen should resemble the one
shown in Figure B-7.

FIGURE B-7 The data entry screen for the Employee table

The Employee table has many fields, some of which may be off the screen to the right. Scroll to see obscured
fields. (Scrolling happens automatically as you enter data.) Figure B-7 shows all of the fields on the screen.
Enter your data one field value at a time. Note that the first row is empty when you begin. Each time you
finish entering a value, press Enter to move the cursor to the next cell. After you enter data in the last cell in
a row, the cursor moves to the first cell of the next row and Access automatically saves the record. Thus, you
do not need to click the File tab and then select Save after entering data into a table.
When entering data in your table, you should enter dates in the following format: 6/15/2020. Access
automatically expands the entry to the proper format in output.
Also note that Yes/No variables are clicked (checked) for Yes; otherwise, the box is left blank for No. You
can change the box from Yes to No by clicking it.
Enter the data shown in Figure B-8 into the Employee table. If you make errors in data entry, click the
cell, backspace over the error, and type the correction.

FIGURE B-8 Data for the Employee table

Note that the sixth record is your data record. Assume that you live in Elkton, Maryland; were hired on today’s
date (enter the date); and are a U.S. citizen. Make up a fictitious Employee ID number. For purposes of this tutorial,
the sixth record has been created using the name of one of this text’s authors and the employee ID 09911.
After adding records to the Employee table, open the Wage Data table and enter the data shown in Figure B-9.

FIGURE B-9 Data for the Wage Data table

In this table, you are again asked to create a new entry. For this record, enter your own employee ID.
Also assume that you earn $8 an hour and are not salaried. Note that when an employee’s Salaried box is not
checked (in other words, Salaried 5 No), the implication is that the employee is paid by the hour. Because
salaried employees are not paid by the hour, their hourly rate is 0.00.

When you finish creating the Wage Data table, open the Hours Worked table and enter the data shown in
Figure B-10.

FIGURE B-10 Data for the Hours Worked table

Notice that salaried employees are always given 40 hours. Nonsalaried employees (including you) might
work any number of hours. For your record, enter your fictitious employee ID, 60 hours worked for Week 1,
and 55 hours worked for Week 2.

CREATING QUERIES
Because you know how to create basic queries, this section explains the advanced queries you will create in
the cases in this book.

Using Calculated Fields in Queries

A calculated field is an output field made up of other field values. A calculated field can be a field in a table;
here it is created in the query generator. The calculated field here does not become part of the table—it is just
part of the query output. The best way to understand this process is to work through an example.

AT THE KEYBOARD
Suppose you want to see the employee IDs and wage rates of hourly workers, and the new wage rates if all
employees were given a 10 percent raise. To view that information, show the employee ID, the current wage rate,
and the higher rate, which should be titled New Rate in the output. Figure B-11 shows how to set up the query.

FIGURE B-11 Query setup for the calculated field

To set up this query, you need to select hourly workers by using the Salaried field with Criteria 5 No.
Note in Figure B-11 that the Show box for the field is not checked, so the Salaried field values will not appear
in the query output.
Note the expression for the calculated field, which you can see in the far-right field cell:
New Rate: 1.1 * [Wage Rate]
The term New Rate: merely specifies the desired output heading. (Don’t forget the colon.) The rest of the
expression, 1.1 * [Wage Rate], multiplies the old wage rate by 110 percent, which results in the 10 percent
raise.
In the expression, the field name Wage Rate must be enclosed in square brackets. Remember this
rule: Any time an Access expression refers to a field name, the field name must be enclosed in square
brackets.
If you run this query, your output should resemble the one in Figure B-12.

FIGURE B-12 Output for a query with calculated field

Notice that the calculated field output is not shown in Currency format but as a Double—a number with
digits after the decimal point. To convert the output to Currency format, select the output column by clicking
the line above the calculated field expression. The column darkens to indicate its selection. Your data entry
screen should resemble the one shown in Figure B-13.

FIGURE B-13 Activating a calculated field in query design

Then, on the Design tab, click Property Sheet in the Show/Hide group. The Field Properties sheet appears,
as shown on the right in Figure B-14.

FIGURE B-14 Field properties of a calculated field

Click Format and choose Currency, as shown in Figure B-15. Then click the X in the upper-right corner of
the window to close it.

FIGURE B-15 Currency format of a calculated field

When you run the query, the output should resemble the one in Figure B-16.

FIGURE B-16 Query output with formatted calculated field

Next, you examine how to avoid errors when making calculated fields.

Avoiding Errors When Making Calculated Fields

Follow these guidelines to avoid making errors in calculated fields:
• Do not enter the expression in the Criteria cell as if the field definition were a filter. You are
making a field, so enter the expression in the Field cell.

• Spell, capitalize, and space a field’s name exactly as you did in the table definition. If the table
definition differs from what you type, Access thinks you are defining a new field by that name.
Access then prompts you to enter values for the new field, which it calls a Parameter Query field.
This problem is easy to debug because of the tag Parameter Query. If Access asks you to enter
values for a parameter, you almost certainly misspelled a field name in an expression in a calcu-
lated field or criterion.
For example, here are some errors you might make for Wage Rate:
Misspelling: (Wag Rate)
Case change: (wage Rate/WAGE RATE)
Spacing change: (WageRate/Wage Rate)
• Do not use parentheses or curly braces instead of the square brackets. Also, do not put parenthe-
ses inside square brackets. You can, however, use parentheses outside the square brackets in the
normal algebraic manner.
For example, suppose that you want to multiply Hours by Wage Rate to get a field called Wages
Owed. This is the correct expression:
Wages Owed: [Wage Rate] * [Hours]
The following expression also would be correct:
Wages Owed: ([Wage Rate] * [Hours])
But it would not be correct to omit the inside brackets, which is a common error:
Wages Owed: [Wage Rate * Hours]

“Relating” Two or More Tables by the Join Operation

Often, the data you need for a query is in more than one table. To complete the query, you must join the
tables by linking the common fields. One rule of thumb is that joins are made on fields that have common
values, and those fields often can be key fields. The names of the join fields are irrelevant; also, the names of
the tables or fields to be joined may be the same, but it is not required for an effective join.
Make a join by bringing in (adding) the tables needed. Next, decide which fields you will join. Then click
one field name and hold down the left mouse button while you drag the cursor over to the other field’s name
in its window. Release the button. Access inserts a line to signify the join. (If a relationship between two tables
has been formed elsewhere, Access inserts the line automatically, and you do not have to perform the click-
and-drag operation. Access often inserts join lines without the user forming relationships.)
You can join more than two tables. The common fields need not be the same in all tables; that is, you can
daisy-chain them together.
A common join error is to add a table to the query and then fail to link it to another table. In that case,
you will have a table floating in the top part of the query by example (QBE) screen. When you run the query,
your output will show the same records over and over. The error is unmistakable because there is so much
redundant output. The two rules are to add only the tables you need and to link all tables.
Next, you will work through an example of a query that needs a join.

AT THE KEYBOARD
Suppose you want to see the last names, employee IDs, wage rates, salary status, and citizenship only for
U.S. citizens and hourly workers. Because the data is spread across two tables, Employee and Wage Data, you
should add both tables and pull down the five fields you need. Then you should add the Criteria expressions.
Set up your work to resemble the one in Figure B-17. Make sure the tables are joined on the common field,
Employee ID.

FIGURE B-17 A query based on two joined tables

You should quickly review the criteria you will need to set up this join: If you want data for employees
who are U.S. citizens and who are hourly workers, the Criteria expressions go in the same Criteria row. If you
want data for employees who are U.S. citizens or who are hourly workers, one of the expressions goes in the
second Criteria row (the one with the or: notation).
Now run the query. The output should resemble the one in Figure B-18, with the exception of the name
“Brady.”

FIGURE B-18 Output of a query based on two joined tables

You do not need to print or save the query output, so return to Design view and close the query. Another
practice query follows.

AT THE KEYBOARD
Suppose you want to see the wages owed to hourly employees for Week 2. You should show the last name,
the employee ID, the salaried status, the week #, and the wages owed. Wages will have to be a calculated field
([Wage Rate] * [Hours]). The criteria are No for Salaried and 2 for the Week #. (This means that another
“And” query is required.) Your query should be set up like the one in Figure B-19.

FIGURE B-19 Query setup for wages owed to hourly employees for Week 2

NOTE
In the query in Figure B-19, the calculated field column was widened so you could see the whole expression. To widen a
column, click the column boundary line and drag to the right.

Run the query. The output should be similar to that in Figure B-20, if you formatted your calculated field
to Currency.

FIGURE B-20 Query output for wages owed to hourly employees for Week 2

Notice that it was not necessary to pull down the Wage Rate and Hours fields to make the query work. You
do not need to save or print the query output, so return to Design view and close the query.

Summarizing Data from Multiple Records (Totals Queries)

You may want data that summarizes values from a field for several records (or possibly all records) in a table.
For example, you might want to know the average hours that all employees worked in a week or the total
(sum) of all of the hours worked. Furthermore, you might want data grouped or stratified in some way. For
example, you might want to know the average hours worked, grouped by all U.S. citizens versus all non-U.S.
citizens. Access calls such a query a Totals query. These queries include the following operations:

Sum The total of a given field’s values

Count A count of the number of instances in a field—that is, the number of records. In the
current example, you would count the number of employee IDs to get the number of
employees.
Average The average of a given field’s values
Min The minimum of a given field’s values
Var The variance of a given field’s values
StDev The standard deviation of a given field’s values
Where The field has criteria for the query output

AT THE KEYBOARD
Suppose you want to know how many employees are represented in the example database. First, bring the
Employee table into the QBE screen. Because you will need to count the number of employee IDs, which is a
Totals query operation, you must bring down the Employee ID field.
To tell Access that you want a Totals query, click the Design tab and then click the Totals button in the
Show/Hide group. A new row called the Total row opens in the lower part of the QBE screen. At this point, the
screen resembles the one in Figure B-21.

FIGURE B-21 Totals query setup

Note that the Total cell contains the words Group By. Until you specify a statistical operation, Access
assumes that a field will be used for grouping (stratifying) data.
To count the number of employee IDs, click next to Group By to display an arrow. Click the arrow to
reveal a drop-down menu, as shown in Figure B-22.

FIGURE B-22 Choices for statistical operation in a Totals query

Select the Count operator. (You might need to scroll down the menu to see the operator you want.) Your
screen should resemble the one shown in Figure B-23.

FIGURE B-23 Count in a Totals query

Run the query. Your output should resemble the one in Figure B-24.

FIGURE B-24 Output of Count in a Totals query

Notice that Access created a pseudo-heading, “CountOfEmployee ID,” by splicing together the statisti-
cal operation (Count), the word Of, and the name of the field (Employee ID). If you wanted a phrase such as
“Count of Employees” as a heading, you would go to Design view and change the query to resemble the one
shown in Figure B-25.

FIGURE B-25 Heading change in a Totals query

When you run the query, the output should resemble the one in Figure B-26.

FIGURE B-26 Output of heading change in a Totals query

You do not need to print or save the query output, so return to Design view and close the query.

AT THE KEYBOARD
As another example of a Totals query, suppose you want to know the average wage rate of employees, grouped
by whether the employees are salaried. Figure B-27 shows how to set up your query.

FIGURE B-27 Query setup for average wage rate of employees

When you run the query, your output should resemble the one in Figure B-28.

FIGURE B-28 Output of query for average wage rate of employees

Recall the convention that salaried workers are assigned zero dollars an hour. Suppose you want to elimi-
nate the output line for zero dollars an hour because only hourly-rate workers matter for the query. The query
setup is shown in Figure B-29.

FIGURE B-29 Query setup for nonsalaried workers only

When you run the query, you will get output for nonsalaried employees only, as shown in Figure B-30.

FIGURE B-30 Query output for nonsalaried workers only

Thus, it is possible to use Criteria in a Totals query, just as you would with a “regular” query. You do not
need to print or save the query output, so return to Design view and close the query.

AT THE KEYBOARD
Assume that you want to see two pieces of information for hourly workers: (1) the average wage rate, which
you will call Average Rate in the output, and (2) 110 percent of the average rate, which you will call the
Increased Rate. To get this information, you can make a calculated field in a new query from a Totals query. In
other words, you use one query as a basis for another query.
Create the first query; you already know how to perform certain tasks for this query. The revised head-
ing for the average rate will be Average Rate, so type Average Rate: Wage Rate in the Field cell. Note that you
want the average of this field. Also, the grouping will be by the Salaried field. (To get hourly workers only,
enter Criteria: No.) Confirm that your query resembles the one in Figure B-31, then save the query and
close it.

FIGURE B-31 A totals query with average

Now begin a new query. However, instead of bringing in a table to the query design, select a query. To
start a new query, click the Create tab and then click the Query Design button in the Queries group. The
Show Table window appears. Click the Queries tab instead of using the default Tables tab, and select the query
you just saved as a basis for the new query. The most difficult part of this query is to construct the expression
for the calculated field. Conceptually, it is as follows:
Increased Rate: 1.1 * [The current average]
You use the new field name in the new query as the current average, and you treat the new name like a
new field:
Increased Rate: 1.1 * [Average Rate]

The query within a query is shown in Figure B-32.

FIGURE B-32 A query within a query

Figure B-33 shows the output of the new query. Note that the calculated field is formatted.

FIGURE B-33 Output of an Expression in a Totals query

You do not need to print or save the query output, so return to Design view and close the query.

Using the Date() Function in Queries

Access has two important date function features:
• The built-in Date() function gives you today’s date. You can use the function in query criteria or
in a calculated field. The function “returns” the day on which the query is run; in other words, it
inserts the value where the Date() function appears in an expression.
• Date arithmetic lets you subtract one date from another to obtain the difference—in number of
days—between two calendar dates. For example, suppose you create the following expression:
10/9/2020 2 10/4/2020
Access would evaluate the expression as the integer 5 (9 minus 4 is 5).
As another example of how date arithmetic works, suppose you want to give each employee a one-dollar
bonus for each day the employee has worked. You would need to calculate the number of days between the
employee’s date of hire and the day the query is run, and then multiply that number by $1.
You would find the number of elapsed days by using the following equation:
Date() 2 [Date Hired]
Also suppose that for each employee, you want to see the last name, employee ID, and bonus amount. You
would set up the query as shown in Figure B-34.

FIGURE B-34 Date arithmetic in a query

Assume that you set the format of the Bonus field to Currency. The output will be similar to that in
Figure B-35, although your Bonus data will be different because you used a different date.

FIGURE B-35 Output of query with date arithmetic

Using Time Arithmetic in Queries

Access also allows you to subtract the values of time fields to get an elapsed time. Assume that your database
has a Job Assignments table showing the times that nonsalaried employees were at work during a day. The
definition is shown in Figure B-36.

FIGURE B-36 Date/Time data definition in the Job Assignments table

Assume that the DateWorked field is formatted for Long Date and that the ClockIn and ClockOut fields
are formatted for Medium Time. Also assume that for a particular day, nonsalaried workers were scheduled as
shown in Figure B-37.

FIGURE B-37 Display of date and time in a table

You want a query showing the elapsed time that your employees were on the premises for the day.
When you add the tables, your screen may show the links differently. Click and drag the Job Assignments,
Employee, and Wage Data table icons to look like those in Figure B-38.

FIGURE B-38 Query setup for time arithmetic

Figure B-39 shows the output, which looks correct. For example, employee 09911 was at work from
8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., which is eight hours. But how does the odd expression that follows yield the correct
answers?

FIGURE B-39 Query output for time arithmetic

([ClockOut] 2 [ClockIn]) * 24
Why wouldn’t the following expression work?
[ClockOut] 2 [ClockIn]
Here is the answer: In Access, subtracting one time from the other yields the decimal portion of a 24-hour
day. Returning to the example, you can see that employee 09911 worked eight hours, which is one-third of
a day, so the time arithmetic function yields .3333. That is why you must multiply by 24—to convert from
decimals to an hourly basis. Hence, for employee 09911, the expression performs the following calculation:
1/3 3 24 5 8.
Note that parentheses are needed to force Access to do the subtraction first, before the multiplication.
Without parentheses, multiplication takes precedence over subtraction. For example, consider the following
expression:
[ClockOut] 2 [ClockIn] * 24
In this example, ClockIn would be multiplied by 24, the resulting value would be subtracted from
ClockOut, and the output would be a nonsensical decimal number.

Deleting and Updating Queries

The queries presented in this tutorial so far have been Select queries. They select certain data from spe-
cific tables based on a given criterion. You also can create queries to update the original data in a database.

Businesses use such queries often, and in real time. For example, when you order an item from a Web site, the
company’s database is updated to reflect your purchase through the deletion of that item from the company’s
inventory.
Consider an example. Suppose you want to give all nonsalaried workers a $0.50 per hour pay raise.
Because you have only three nonsalaried workers, it would be easy to change the Wage Rate data in the table.
However, if you had 3,000 nonsalaried employees, it would be much faster and more accurate to change the
Wage Rate data by using an Update query that adds $0.50 to each nonsalaried employee’s wage rate.

AT THE KEYBOARD
Now you will change each of the nonsalaried employees’ pay via an Update query. Figure B-40 shows how to
set up the query.

FIGURE B-40 Query setup for an Update query

So far, this query is just a Select query. Click the Update button in the Query Type group, as shown in
Figure B-41.

FIGURE B-41 Selecting a query type

Notice that you now have another line on the QBE grid called Update To:, which is where you specify the
change or update the data. Notice that you will update only the nonsalaried workers by using a filter under
the Salaried field. Update the Wage Rate data to Wage Rate plus $0.50, as shown in Figure B-42. Note that the
update involves the use of brackets [ ], as in a calculated field.

FIGURE B-42 Updating the wage rate for nonsalaried workers

Now run the query by clicking the Run button in the Results group. If you cannot run the query because
it is blocked by Disabled Mode, click the Enable Content button on the Security Warning message bar. When
you successfully run the query, the warning message in Figure B-43 appears.

FIGURE B-43 Update query warning

When you click Yes, the records are updated. Check the updated records by viewing the Wage Data table.
Each nonsalaried wage rate should be increased by $0.50. You could add or subtract data from another table
as well. If you do, remember to put the field name in square brackets.

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sympathetically with another who scores off his adversary, and so
forth; (2) that the object degraded need not be a person, since
human affairs in general, e.g., political institutions, a code of
manners, a style of poetic composition, may be taken down; and (3)
that, as in Aristotle’s theory, certain limiting conditions, namely,
absence of counteracting emotions, such as pity or disgust, are
recognised. These extensions on the one hand and limitations on the
other are clearly meant to safeguard the Hobbesian principle against
the attacks to which it so dangerously exposes itself.66
Even in this new and more guarded form, however, the theory
will not bear the strain put upon it. It will account fairly well for
some of the forms of the laughable in our list, such as slight
misfortunes or mischances, defects, moral and intellectual, which do
not shock or otherwise hurt our feelings, also certain forms of make-
believe which are distinctly hypocritical and so capable of being
regarded at once as moral defects, and (being seen through) as
discomfitures. It may apply also, as has been hinted above, to the
effect of the obscene; though I, at least, feel that without some
forcing the effect cannot be interpreted in this way. There seems to
me to lurk in our laughter here something of the joy of the child, of
the Naturkind, Walt Whitman, at the sight of what is customarily
hidden away.67
Leaving this, however, as a more doubtful case, let us turn to
other groups. Is it possible to regard all laughable exhibitions of
incongruities as degradations? Is the {123} charming unsuitability of
the “grown-up’s” coat and hat to the childish form viewed by the
laughing spectator as a degradation when he “lets himself go”? Are
we laughing at the clothes as degraded by being thus transformed,
or at the child’s naïveté as a degradation of human intelligence? I
confess that such a way of interpreting the spectacle strikes me as
grotesquely forced. The look of the whole thing in the complete
unfitness of its parts seems to affect one as a delicious absurdity
before the sweet simplicity below the surface is detected.
Our author does his best to show that mere incongruity, where
nothing is degraded, does not raise the laugh. I readily grant that he
has made out his case, so far as to show that in most of the pungent
and potently moving examples of the incongruous an element of
degradation, of malicious detraction is present. But this is not
enough. The question is whether it is always present, and whether
in the cases where it is present it is the sole excitant of our mirth. I
believe that a finer analysis shows that this is not so. Where, for
example, is “the degraded” in a child’s laughter at the sight of his
nursery all topsy-turvy on a cleaning day? Does he view the nurse as
put to shame by the setting of chairs on tables and so forth, instead
of observing the proper local congruities? or does he think of the
room as something quasi-human which takes on an improper look as
he himself does when he makes himself in a glorious mess? Slight
movements of fancy of this kind may be present: but do they lie at
the sources of his laughter and constitute its main moving force?
As another way of testing the theory, we may glance at those
examples of the odd or out of the way in which we find nothing of
deformity, and do not seem to focus our mental glance on any loss
of dignity, but are content to be {124} amused at the queer spectacle
for its own sake. I have seen a child of three or so go into a long fit
of laughter at the antics of a skittish pair of horses just turned loose
on a common. Did the child see anything of the mean, disgraceful,
undignified in these new and lively movements? Were they not
immensely, overpoweringly funny, just because they were
outrageous deviations from the customary proper behaviour of
horses when saddled or harnessed to a carriage? I feel the impulse
to laugh at a “guy” in the street who captures my roving nonchalant
eye long before I reflect on any loss of dignity which the bizarre
costume may signify. In sooth, if, in this first happy moment, any
distinct thought of the personality behind the wild, startling figure
floats up to the surface of consciousness, it is a friendly one. I am
disposed to like and feel grateful to the person who thus for an
instant relieves for me the insufferable dulness of the spectacle of
London citizens all dressed according to one stupid fashion.
Or let us take another group: the relish for word-play and the
lighter kinds of wit. Here, again, I concede to Bain that the taking
down of something a good peg-interval intensifies our satisfaction:
but it seems impossible to maintain that our mirth depends
altogether on the recognition of this. A good pun, a skilful turning of
words so as to give a new and startlingly disconnected meaning, can
hardly be said to owe its instant capture of our laughing muscles to
our perception of a degradation of language and the habits of
serious speech. On the contrary, I should say that any focussing of
thought on this aspect would considerably weaken and might
altogether arrest the laughing impulse. It is to the serious person
who keeps his mouth firmly closed that this feature of the case
addresses itself. Is there not here, even in the case of mirthful men,
some of the delight {125} of the playful child who amuses himself by
turning words and expressions into queer nonsense just for the fun
of the thing?
2. We may now pass to the second of the main types of theory
which have been proposed as explanations of the working of the
laughable on our feeling and the correlated muscular mechanism. Its
distinctive mark is that, instead of setting behind our enjoyment of
the ludicrous an emotion, or a change in our moral attitude, namely,
a sense of our own superiority or of something else’s degradation, it
sets a purely intellectual attitude, a modification of thought-activity.
The laughter, according to this second theory, results from a peculiar
effect on our intellectual mechanism, such as the nullification of a
process of expectation or of an expectant tendency. It is this
perfectly disinterested intellectual process which brings about the
feeling of the ludicrous and its expression in laughter. This may be
called the Intellectual Theory, or Theory of Contrariety or
Incongruity. Since we have already touched on this mode of
conceiving of the effect of the ludicrous in criticising the view of Dr.
Lipps, a brief examination of it may content us here.
It may be noted in passing that this way of dealing with the
ludicrous is characteristically German. The dominant note in the
philosophy of Kant and his successors has been to regard all
determinations of experience as fundamentally a rational process.
Just as in the domain of ethics these thinkers conceive of what
British Ethicists have been wont to call the Moral Sentiment as
essentially a process of Reason, so in that branch of Æsthetics which
deals with the Comic we find them disposed to regard the effect of
the ludicrous, less as the excitation of a concrete and familiar
emotion, such as Pride or Power, than as a special modification of
the process of thought. {126}
Kant may be taken as the first great representative of this theory.
According to him, wit—the only variety of the ludicrous which he
touches on—is a kind of play, namely, that of thought. In everything
that is to excite a lively laugh there must be something absurd. It is
“an affection arising from the sudden transformation of a strained
(gespannte ) expectation into nothing”. The transformation is, of
course, not directly enjoyable to the understanding: it seems to
induce gratification indirectly by means of a furthered bodily
process. This, by the way, is a noteworthy concession by a German
thinker to the claims of the poor body to recognition in these high
affairs of the understanding, a concession which his followers quickly
struck out. He gives as an example of his theory the story of a
Hindoo who, when sitting at an Englishman’s table, and seeing a
bottle of beer turned into froth, expressed astonishment. Being
questioned as to the reason, he remarked: “I am not at all
astonished that it should flow out, but I do wonder how you ever got
it in”.
I have enlarged on Kant’s theory mainly because of the authority
of the author. German critics themselves recognise how absurdly
inadequate is the little he says on the subject as an explanation of
the effect of the laughable.68 A few words will perhaps make this
plain.
It is evident that what Kant was thinking of under the head of
the ludicrous was merely those exchanges of witty words and
amusing stories which naturally enough formed a principal pastime
of the devoted Königsberg thinker. Yet, even when considered under
this narrow aspect, his theory shows itself to be palpably insufficient.
It is noteworthy {127} that, in seeking to make it fit the remark of the
Hindoo quoted above, Kant feels himself called upon to contradict
the suggestion that we laugh “because we deem ourselves cleverer
than this ignorant man”. This objection, which could not fail to occur
to one who remembers Hobbes, cannot, however, be summarily
dismissed by a bare assurance such as Kant gives us; and, as a
recent writer remarks, “there is good reason to suppose that we
laugh at the ignorance (better, ‘at the naïveté’) of the man who
seeks the difficulty in a wrong place”.69
One may go farther and venture the assertion that it is
impossible to explain any laughable incident, story or remark as due
altogether to dissolved expectation or surprise.
In examining the adequacy of Kant’s theory to this purpose, I set
out with the natural presupposition that, when using the word
expectation, he does not mean a definite anticipation of some
particular concrete sequel to what is presented to the mind at the
moment. In the illustration given, he would not have meant that the
questioner had a well-defined expectant idea of another explanation
of the Hindoo’s astonishment. It is only fair to assume that he meant
merely what the word “expect” means when, on meeting a friend in
a London street whom I had supposed to be out of England, I say “I
did not expect to see you”. In other words, “expectation” stands
here for a general attitude of mind, a mode of apperceptive
readiness to assimilate any idea of a certain order, that is to say,
standing in a recognisable relation to what is presented. It is the
attitude in which we appreciate the evolution of a plot in fiction
when this appears natural and does not give a shock to
consciousness. {128}
Employing the word in this sense, one may say that, even when
we laugh on receiving the solution to a conundrum which has teased
and baffled us, it is not because of the dissipation of an expectant
attitude. This conclusion is suggested by the familiar fact that, when
at the end of our self-puzzling we are told that there is no solution,
and when consequently we are unmistakably the subjects of an
annulled expectation, we are very likely not to laugh; or, if we are
good-natured enough to do so, it is as a result, not of any
disappointment, but of a discovery that we have been hoaxed. This
laugh at one’s befooled self—which we shall not be disposed to
repeat if the trick is tried a second time—so far from illustrating the
principle of annulled expectation is a particularly clear example of
that of lowered dignity.
The best kind of example of the laughable for Kant’s purpose
would seem to be something odd and fantastic in dress or manners.
Here, as I have allowed, a kind of shock is inflicted on our fixed
apperceptive tendencies. But to speak of a process of dissipated
expectation here seems to be hardly accurate. As I have hinted, the
sudden appearance of the unexpected moves us to laughter
primarily as a delightful novelty.
It seems to follow that Kant’s principle of nullified expectation
offers no adequate explanation of those forms of the ludicrous which
are most promising for his purpose. I may add that it fails because it
makes no serious attempt to mark off the domain of the laughable
by certain well-defined characteristics. We have seen that the
objects which excite our laughter are things human, or akin to the
human. The theory of degradation evidently recognises this: by
making the ludicrous consist in a loss of dignity it points at once to
the human sphere. But the theory {129} that the effect of the
ludicrous comes from an annihilation of a strained expectation
suggests that it has nothing specially to do with the spectacle of
human life.
As I have not included the capability of dissipating expectation
among the laughable features of objects, I may indicate what I hold
to be the function of surprise in the effect of the ludicrous. Surprise,
the effect of a presentation for which the mind is not perfectly pre-
adjusted at the moment, seems to be a common condition of vivid
and exciting impressions, certainly of those which induce a state of
gladness. Hence we need not wonder that it should be found among
the antecedents of that outburst of gladness which we call laughter.
Nevertheless, it seems probable that the part played by surprise
in the enjoyment of the laughable has been exaggerated. Does the
Londoner who laughs again and again at the rough jocosities of the
Punch and Judy show, depend on annihilated expectation for his
mirth? Dogberry’s love of a mildewy old story is by no means
peculiar to him. A really good joke continues to amuse long after the
first effect of surprise has worn off. A like conclusion is reached by
remembering that even when a definite attitude of expectation for
the coming of the ludicrous turn is assumed, laughter’s greeting is
none the less hearty. When racy stories are circulating and the lips
move in anticipation of some new joke it seems an odd way of
describing the effect to say that it is due to a dissipation of
expectation. There surely seems to be more of realisation than
annihilation here, even though the precise form of the impending
attack on our laughter is unknown. In certain cases, moreover, as
when we are watching with amusement the actions of one on whom
a practical joke is being played—actions which we, being in the
secret of the plot, are able to {130} forecast with a considerable
degree of precision, the element of surprise dwindles to the
vanishing point. The essential condition of our laughter would thus
appear to be, not the meeting of the amusing presentation with a
state of complete unpreparedness of mind at the moment, but such
a degree of contrariety between the presentation and our fixed and
irrepressible apperceptive tendencies as will, even in spite of a pre-
adjustment, secure something of a mild, momentary shock.70
A more carefully developed example of the mode of conceiving of
the laughable which finds its essence in the annihilation of a rational
attitude is supplied by Schopenhauer. According to this writer, the
process which determines our laughter is describable as an
intellectual effort and its frustration. “In every instance (he tells us)
the phenomenon of laughter indicates the sudden perception of an
incongruity between a conception (Begriff) and a real object, which
is to be understood or ‘thought’ through (i.e., by means of) this
conception.” The incongruity between the perception and the
conception under which the understanding necessarily strives to
bring it must be of such a degree that the perception strikingly
differs from the conception. The greater and the more unexpected
the incongruity, the more violent (heftiger) will be our laughter.
The author’s example of the absurdity of the presentation of the
curve and straight line trying to force itself under the incongruent
conception of an angle is intended to illustrate this theory.71 Here is
another which has a {131} more promising look. A man who has been
arrested by soldiers is allowed to join them in a game of cards. He is
found cheating and is kicked out, his playmates quite forgetting that
he is their prisoner. Here, according to Schopenhauer, we laugh
because the incident, the ejection of a prisoner just arrested, will not
fit into the general rule, “cheats at the card-table should be thrust
out”.
This form of the Intellectual theory clearly avoids the objection to
Kant’s version, that we frequently laugh at things when there is no
discoverable trace of a preceding expectation involving something in
the nature of an idea; for we take it as meaning that the conception
arises after, and as a result of, the perception. It is further
indisputable, as Kant has shown us, that in our explicit judgments,
as when we say, “This painting is (or is not) a work of Rubens,” a
general form of representation or something in the nature of a
concept may take part, the percept being (or refusing to be)
subsumed under this.
At the same time, as was urged in the first chapter, the distinct
calling up of this general representation is occasional only, and,
therefore, not a pre-requisite of a perception of conformity or non-
conformity to the normal type. When I envisage a person as
correctly or as oddly dressed, I do not in either case need to have a
schematic representation of the proper typical style of dress. The
same holds good of many cases in which a definite rule, say of
language or good manners, is felt to be complied with or to be
broken: we do not need to call up a distinct representation of the
rule. At most we can speak here of a conceptual tendency, of an
apperceptive acceptance or rejection of a presentation, certain
features of which are specially attended to as characteristic of the
type or general form; or, on the other hand, as marks of deviation
from this. {132}
Even if we adopt this amended form of Schopenhauer’s theory,
we find that it is not sufficient for explaining his examples. Of the
funny tangential angle no more need be said. Nor will his illustration
of the self-befooled warders bear close inspection. To begin with,
one may note a certain arbitrariness in the use of a mode of
interpretation which plainly allows of an alternative. We can say
equally well, either (with Schopenhauer) that the extrusion of a
cheat who is also a prisoner will not fit into the general rule “cheats
have to be ejected,” or that the extrusion of a prisoner who is also a
cheat will not fit into the rule that prisoners have to be confined.72 It
seems to be more fitting here also to regard the incongruity—so far
as the perception of this is the direct cause of our laughter—as
holding between two aspects of the incident presented. The man is
envisaged at once as a cheat and as a prisoner, and as such comes
under two régimes which directly conflict. The perception of the fun
of the story surely begins with a discernment of this mutual
interference of two systems of rule.
Yet this is certainly not all or the chief part of the perception. The
unstinting laugh comes only when we view the keepers as naïvely
“giving themselves away” to their prisoner by consenting to become
playmates, and so putting themselves under a rule which wholly
destroys their rôle as custodians. Here, too, then, the principle of
incongruity shows itself to be insufficient.
It only remains to add that if Schopenhauer’s theory turns out to
be inadequate even when applied to an example chosen by himself,
it is pretty certain to fail when applied to other groups of instances
of the laughable in our list, in which incongruity does not seem to be
a potent {133} ingredient, if indeed it is present at all. To suggest, for
example, that our laughter at small and harmless vices, such as
Aristotle speaks of, is the outcome of a suddenly conceived
incongruity between a “real object” or presentation and a conception
sounds sufficiently forced. Would the author of the theory have been
prepared to say that in these instances we have present to our mind
the concept of a perfectly virtuous man, and that our laughter comes
of our failing to bring the perception under this conception? Surely
the intrusion of any such exalted “concept” would be fatal to our
enjoyment of the laughable aspect of vice.
Facts, moreover, contradict this view on every hand. It may
suffice to allude to one of the world’s great purveyors of laughter, Sir
John Falstaff. According to this theory, we ought to laugh most at his
vices when he first reveals them, since this is the moment when we
should be most likely to bring to bear on him the “concept” of a
proper decent gentleman. But is it not the fact that we laugh more
freely when we have quite ceased to think of him as a possible
embodiment of sobriety and decency, and when we apperceive his
behaviour by help of the conceptual tendency answering, not to the
type of virtuous citizen, but to the general manner of behaviour or
the character of John Falstaff himself? The same is true in everyday
life. We are, I think, most ready to laugh at a man’s foibles, say, his
vanity or his exaggerations of speech, when we know the man and
can say, “Oh, it is only So-and-So!”
Neither the theory of Kant nor of Schopenhauer seems, then, to
be competent to do what it undertakes to do, to explain the various
forms and impressions of the laughable. These two theories, in spite
of their difference, agree in regarding the incongruity which excites
our laughter as lying between what we perceive and what our
previous {134} experience and our pre-existing ideas and apperceptive
habits have prepared us to accept as natural and proper. But our
examination of the instance of the ill-matched hat and head supplied
by Dr. Lipps, as also our fuller discussion of the relation of
incongruity in the preceding chapter, has led us to recognise an
amusing contrariety between different parts of a presentation, of
what may be called internal incongruity in contradistinction to the
external dealt with by Kant and Schopenhauer. Hence we have to
inquire how these two modes of apprehending incongruity are
related.
That, prima facie, we have to do in this case with a real
difference in the mode of perception, seems indisputable; let the
reader compare the effect of the two spectacles, a man wearing an
extravagantly tall hat, and a small boy wearing a hat of the height of
a man’s; or, again, a tiny man alone, and a short man by the side of
a tall woman. In some instances, indeed, we may see that there is
an intrinsic repugnance between the parts of a presentation, as
when two colours in a woman’s dress violently clash, or when a
statement is palpably self-contradictory. Here there seems to be no
reference, however vague, to previous experience or the customary.
At the same time we may easily see that this field of the internally
incongruent is a very narrow one. Much of what looks like this turns
out, on closer inspection, to be, in part at least, externally
determined. This is true of what we call a bizarre mixture of
incongruent elements in mode of attire or in manners; for it is
experience and the habits of social life which dispose our minds to
regard them as foreign one to the other. Much of our mirthful
gratification at exhibitions of the incongruous arises through a
perception of the intrusion of something foreign into a situation.
When, for example, we observe a {135} rather sprightly gesture in the
pulpit, we mentally view this action against a background which is
the situation of the moment. Now this situation is by no means
wholly presented: it is a presentation greatly enlarged and
profoundly modified by the addition of a general significance. The
attitude of the spectator’s mind, face to face with the scene, is
determined by apperceptive tendencies which imply a readiness to
expect a certain kind of behaviour. And this, again, evidently means
that certain directions of imaginative activity, and something in the
nature of a “generic image” and of conceptual thought, are stirring.
This effect of experience and apperceptive habits in modifying our
perceptions is probably illustrated in all our appreciations of the
amusingly incongruous. To revert once more to the spectacle of the
man’s hat on the child’s head, may we not say that in this case, also,
we envisage the hat as an interloper in the situation—the sweet
sanctum of the nursery?
It seems to follow that Kant and Schopenhauer were wise, when
dealing with incongruity, in emphasising the apperceptive factor.
Contrariety to what we are accustomed to is undoubtedly the great
determining element in the ill-assortments of things which provoke
our laughter. Hence, in examining the theories of these two writers,
we seem to have dealt with the intellectual principle in its most
comprehensive and most favourable form. Nor do I see how any
transformation of this principle will make it an adequate theory. The
entertaining instances of mischances and awkward situations, of
takings down, of moral and intellectual failings, these and other
varieties of the laughable dealt with above steadily refuse to yield up
their secret at the bidding of this theory.
Let us now sum up the results of our criticism of the theories. We
seem to have found that, whereas neither of {136} the two chief types
of theory covers the whole field of the laughable, each has its
proper, limited domain. It is certain that in many cases we laugh at
an incident, a situation, an action, where the provocative is best
described as a loss of dignity. It is equally certain that in many other
cases our laughter springs directly out of a perception, more or less
distinct, of incongruity.
That these principles have each a large sway over our laughter
has been sufficiently illustrated in the preceding chapter: also that
they frequently co-operate in one and the same amusing
presentation. Hence we might expect that the advocate of each
theory would be able to find his illustrations, and would sometimes
manage to pounce upon one just after it had been carried off by his
rival.73
But, it may be urged, even if both principles are shown to be
valid they may be unified. If by this is meant that the incongruous
and the undignified or unworthy, considered as abstract ideas, are
identical, or that logically each involves the other, I am not
concerned to discuss the point. It is enough for our present purpose
to urge that the modes of perception and the shades of feeling
involved are clearly distinguishable.
The same fundamental distinction would nullify the attempt to
subsume one of these principles as a special case under the other. If
we set out with the Intellectual principle, we may, without doubt,
succeed in showing that many, if not all, amusing losses of dignity—
such as a slight disgrace, or a bungling into a “fix”—logically involve
a contrariety between what is presented and the normal custom or
rule. But our question is one not of the logical analysis of meaning
but of the psychological analysis of process, and I can find no
evidence in favour of the theory {137} that when we laugh at these
things we have at the moment any apprehension of such a
contrariety.
It is the same if we start with the other or Moral principle.
Incongruities which are lapses from standard ideas may certainly, as
already conceded, be regarded as degradations. And it may be
possible to show that in all cases of incongruity some loss of dignity
is logically implied. Yet even if it be so, the psychological contention
will still stand that in many cases of incongruity, including our old
friend the child in the father’s hat, we have a full sense of relishing
the incongruity and yet none at all of enjoying a degradation. Where
is the degradation in the spectacle of a crow on a sheep’s back
which may flood a child with mirth? In truth, if our theorists had only
condescended to take note of so small a matter as children’s
enjoyment of the world’s fun, the hypothesis of degradation could
never have stood its ground so long.
Yet another way of evading a glaring dualism may suggest itself.
Allowing that the two principles are each valid, we might, at least,
be able to combine them in the form of a single generalisation. This
is what is done by Hazlitt, for example, who, though he finds the
essence of the laughable in the incongruous, defines the ludicrous as
involving disappointment of expectation by something having
deformity or (something) inconvenient, that is what is contrary to
the customary and desirable.74 Herbert Spencer’s expression, a
“descending incongruity,” is clearly a very similar mode of combining
the principles.75 Lipps’ theory of incongruity, with its distinction of a
little, and a belittling presentation, might also, I think, easily be
made to illustrate another mode of such combination. More recently
Fouillée {138} and others have urged that the one principle in a
manner supplements the other.76
It is evident, however, that this apparent mode of escape will not
avail us. The combined theory implies that all cases of the laughable
are at once incongruities and degradations, that is to say, perceived
and felt to be such. In dealing with the principles separately,
however, we have seen that, in the case of each alike, there are
well-recognised examples of the laughable to which it does not
apply. This conclusion manifestly carries with it the proposition that
there are cases to which a combination of the principles does not
apply.
A last attempt to escape this theoretic dualism would be to urge
that the two principles rule in distinct realms. In that of the
ludicrous proper, it might be urged, we have to do with the
intellectual principle: it is only when the sphere is enlarged to
include all that is laughable, and so the region of the ridiculous, that
the principle of lowered dignity comes in.77 Theorists may insist on
such distinctions, but it seems to me that they cannot be maintained
as hard and fast boundaries. As has been shown above, laughable
things do not all affect us in quite the same way. A spice of malice
comes into much of the laughter that greets the spectacle, say of a
bit of successful trickery; yet this does not make the experience
substantially different from that of enjoying some striking example of
incongruity, say a good Irish “bull”. When the note of derision begins
to sound clearly, there is of course no longer any suggestion of an
effect of the laughable pure and simple.
The attempt to analyse our perceptions of the laughable {139} in
the hope of discovering some single uniting principle has proved to
be abortive. We find in the end that two causes of laughter remain
on our hands.78
The most promising way of bringing the several laughable
qualities and aspects of things under one descriptive head would
seem to be to say that they all illustrate a presentation of something
in the nature of a defect, a failure to satisfy some standard-
requirement, as that of law or custom, provided that it is small
enough to be viewed as a harmless plaything. Much, at least, of our
laughter at the odd as opposed to the customary, at the deformed,
at failure in good manners and the other observances of social life,
at defects of intelligence and of character, at fixes and misfortunes—
so far as the situation implies want of foresight—at the lack of a
perception of the fitness of things, and at other laughable features,
may undoubtedly be regarded as directed to something which fails
to comply with a social requirement, yet is so trifling that we do not
feel called upon to judge the shortcoming severely.
I am sure that to look at the laughable in this way is an
indispensable step in the construction of a theory of the subject. We
must, as we shall see presently, supplement the common mode of
dealing with laughter as an abstract psychological problem, by
bringing into view its social function. Yet this does not necessarily
mean that the consideration of this function will lead us straightway
to a simple theory of the ludicrous. As hinted in the preceding
chapter, we may easily exaggerate the more serious function of
laughter, and this point will be made clearer in subsequent chapters.
That the effects of the laughable cannot all be brought under the
head of means of social correction or improvement, {140} may, even
at this stage of our inquiry, be seen by considering another point, to
which we will now turn. No analysis of the qualities of things in
which the laughable resides will enable us to account for the mirthful
effects of these, even while we remain within the limits of what is
commonly recognised as the ludicrous. This has been illustrated in
the preceding chapter, and a word or two more may suffice to make
it clear.
I have tried to show that some at least of the spectacles that
shake us with laughter do so by satisfying something within us akin
to the child’s delight in the gloriously new and extravagant. This,
again, means that these spectacles make appeal to that primitive
form of laughter, already illustrated, which is called forth by some
sudden increase of joy. Our rejoicing at the sight of the clown’s droll
costume and funny movements has in it something of the laughing
joy of the savage when he is shown some mechanical wonder of
Europe, something of the laughing joy of the infant at the sudden
invasion of his nursery wall by a dancing sunbeam.79
A little more reflection on the groups of laughable things will
show that other ingredients of this primitive laughter are present in
our appreciation of the ludicrous. Dr. Bain finds himself compelled to
eke out the deficiencies of the Hobbesian principle by urging that the
spectacle of degradation may move us to laughter, not merely by
exciting the feeling of power or superiority (as Hobbes said), but by
supplying a sudden release from a state of constraint. The
abandonment of the serious attitude in church when some trivial
incident occurs is an instance of a lowering of the dignity of a thing,
or an occasion, which refreshes {141} us with a sense of liberation.80
This idea carries us much farther than the author thinks. The joyous
deliverance from pressure and constraint will, I think, be found to
reinforce other mental agencies in many cases of ludicrous
presentation in which no degradation is discoverable. Sometimes the
constraint is very severe; witness the effect when the narrator of a
funny story knows how to wind up the emotion of fear to just the
right pitch in order to give us the delicious run down of the mental
works when the funny dénouement bursts upon us. Here our
laughter has a large support in the joyous relief from nervous
tension.
In other cases, again, the release comes as an interruption of a
solemn occasion by the intrusion of something disconnected, and, by
contrast, trifling. The tittering in a church at a small contretemps
has been our illustration. There is incongruity here between two
orders of ideas, if you like; or, as I should prefer to put it, between
two levels of interest. For the point is that the interruption must
seem ludicrous by exhibiting clearly a trifling character, by powerfully
suggesting a non-reverent point of view.
As hinted above, these two sources of laughter, a sudden
oncoming of gladness and a relief from restraint, are closely
connected. The unexpected presentation which gladdens us seems
commonly to bring a kind of relief. This is certainly true of all cases
in which the preceding state was one of conscious depression and
ennui. The laughter of the young, in response to our often cumbrous
attempts to amuse them, may be an escape from a certain strain
which belongs to a state of ennui, from the confinement or restraint
which the poverty of their surroundings at the moment imposes on
them.81 {142}
There is another conceivable way of bringing together the effect
of sudden gladness and relief from restraint. It has been urged that
all laughable things affect us by way of a shock of surprise followed
by a sense of relief. Leigh Hunt, for example, thinks that when we
laugh at something we receive a shock of surprise which gives a
check to the breath, a check which is in proportion to the vivacity of
the surprise; and that our laughter is a relief from this.82 This theory
embodies a sound physiological principle, one which we have
already adopted, but it seems to go too far. As I have tried to show,
a shock of surprise, as we ordinarily understand the expression, is
not an invariable antecedent of our response to laughable things. On
the other hand, it may be urged with some reason that even in
cases where this full shock of the unexpected is wanting, there is a
moment of strain as the presentation affronts the custom-trained
eye, and that the laughter is the expression of the condoning of this
affront, the acceptance of it as harmless play.
In order to complete our psychological analysis of the tendencies
which combine in our enjoyment of ludicrous things, we need to
glance at one other variety of primitive laughter, that of contempt. In
dealing with this in Chapter III. we drew the line between it and the
true enjoyment of the laughable as something “objective”. Yet it
would be a profound error not to recognise the fact, that there is a
real kinship between the two. To begin with, the laugh of contempt,
say over a prostrate foe, or over one whom we have succeeded in
teasing by playing off on him some practical joke, readily passes into
an enjoyment of the laughable proper. It is obviously in part a laugh
at something. Not only so, as a laugh it may be presumed to involve
a less {143} serious attitude in the successful spectator than a sneer,
say, or the hurling of opprobrious words. It will naturally direct itself
to something in the undignified look of the discomfited party which
would be likely to be recognised by others also as laughter-moving.
Again, though I hold that Hobbes’ theory, as he himself
formulates it, errs by insisting on the swelling of the spectator’s self-
consciousness into a feeling of superiority or power, it seems to me
to be indisputable that all examples of the laughable which clearly
fall into the category of mild degradations do give us a sense of
uplifting, something akin to Hobbes’ “sudden glory”. As we are
reminded by Dr. Bain, malevolence or malice has its protean
disguises, and one of them is undoubtedly the joy of the laugher.
The note of malicious crowing, of Schadenfreude, may, no doubt, be
most distinctly heard in some of the laughter of satire and of the
more brutal sort of joke. Yet I suspect that a trace of it lurks, like a
beaten foe, inexpugnable though greatly reduced in strength, in a
large part of our laughter.
There are one or two facts which seem to me to point to the
conclusion that superiority is implied in, if not tacitly claimed by, the
forms of laughter which have a distinctly personal aim. One of these
is the familiar fact that anything in the shape of a feeling of
inferiority to, or even of respect for, the laughable person inhibits the
laughter of the contemplator. But other facts seem to me to be still
more conclusive. Of these the first is that if a person finds himself
distinctly involved in the disgrace, the absurd situation, or whatever
else provokes laughter, he no longer laughs, or laughs in another
key. I see my estimable fellow-pedestrian lose his hat at a street
corner where the wind lies in ambush: my soul expands exultingly.
The moment after, I, too, may fall a victim to the ambuscade, in {144}
which case I probably stop laughing and become the subject of a
different emotion. Or, if I am “laughing animal” enough to keep up
the hilarity, the laugh will have changed. All the glory, the sense of
uplifting, the exultation will have fled, and the new laugh, which
embraces myself along with another unfortunate, will have in it
something of humiliation, will at most have shrunk into a “chastened
joy”.
The second fact is still more decisive. If no superiority is implied
in our common laughter at others, how does it come about that we
all have so very obstinate a dislike to be made its object? The most
amiable of men find it hard enough to rise to the level of a bare
toleration of others’ laughter: the man who can reach the sublime
height of finding a real and considerable gratification in it must be a
hero, or—as some would say—a craven. There are men of a genuine
and most blameless humour who are hardly, if at all, less keenly
sensitive to the attack of another laugher than the most serious of
prigs. Is this understandable unless we suppose that laughter at a
person is instinctively interpreted as an assertion of superiority over
him?
It would seem then to be a reasonable view, that if laughter in
ordinary cases involves superiority, and is so regarded by its object,
the enjoyment of it by its subject will be very apt to bring with it a
taste of superiority. This, I conceive, is the element of truth in
Hobbes’ theory.
The foregoing considerations seem to show clearly that the realm
of the ludicrous is not a closed and clearly bounded territory, as the
theorists for the most part assume it to be. Our enjoyment of its
amusing sights connects itself with, and indeed absorbs into itself,
tendencies which we may observe in the laughter of children and
uncivilised adults. And, if so, the fact seems to require us to go back
upon those primitive tendencies in order to see how far the
connection {145} holds, that is to say, how far the effects of the
ludicrous can be regarded as due to the play of those tendencies.
An analysis of the primitive forms of laughter, which precede its
regulation by a reference to ideas, has disclosed the fact that it is
the expression of pleasure, yet not of all pleasure, but only of the
sudden oncoming or increase of pleasure, of what we call gladness.
It has shown us, further, that this joy of laughter is, in many, if not
in all cases, conditioned by a sudden relaxation of mental strain, and
may, indeed, be described by reference to this condition as a sense
of relief from pressure. This was seen to hold good alike in those
graver situations in which nervous laughter is apt to occur, in the
lighter ones, such as the escape of schoolboys from the classroom to
the playground, and in the still lighter ones in which the strain
relaxed is momentary only, of which the laughter induced by tickling
is the best representative.
Now it seems evident that we have in all these experiences
something analogous to play. The natural alliance of laughter with
the play-mood has already been touched on.83 We may now go a
step farther and say that these spurts of joyous consciousness
which, in simple natures untrammelled by thought of appearances,
express themselves in laughter are of the essence of Play. To be glad
with the gaiety of laughter, to throw off the stiff and wearing attitude
of seriousness and to abandon oneself to mirth and jollity is, in
truth, to begin to play.
The deep kinship between laughter and play discloses itself as
soon as we begin carefully to compare them. Let us look at some of
their common characteristics.
Play contrasts with work, not as rest or inactivity contrasts with
it, but as light pleasurable activity contrasts {146} with the more
strenuous and partly disagreeable kind. The same holds good of
laughter. It is light pleasurable activity in contrast to the more
burdensome activity of our serious hours.
Again, play is free activity entered upon for its own sake. That is
to say, it is not directed to any end outside itself, to the satisfaction
of any want, save that of the play-impulse itself; and so it is free
from external restraint, and from the sense of compulsion—of a
“must” at the ear, whether embodied in the voice of a master or in
that of a higher self—which accompanies the attitude of the worker.
Similarly, when we laugh we are released from the strain and
pressure of serious concentration, from the compulsion of the
practical and other needs which keep men, in the main, serious
beings.
It follows at once that play is relative to work, that it is enjoyed
as a relief from graver occupations, and cannot be indefinitely
prolonged. And, as has been hinted above, the same holds true of
laughter and what we appropriately describe as playing the fool.
In saying that play is spontaneous activity, freed from the
imperious rule of necessity, I do not mean that it is aimless. The
play-impulse provides its own ends; for, without something to aim at,
it could not become conscious activity in the full sense. Thus in the
case of children, at any rate, and possibly of young animals also,
playing at some form of combat implies, as Prof. Groos urges, a keen
striving for something akin to conquest. In other words, the instinct
which underlies the activity seems to bring with it the setting up of
something like an end. Similarly with respect to those varieties of
children’s play which aim at the realisation of an idea, and so
resemble art. In this case, too, an instinct, namely, imitative
production, prompts to the semblance of a serious conative process,
the striving {147} after an end. The same applies to mirthful activity.
In playing off a joke on another we certainly have a definite aim in
view. In neither case, however, is the end regarded as a serious or
important one. Play ceases to be pure play just as soon as the end,
for example conquest, begins to be regarded as a thing of
consequence to the player; and, in like manner, laughter ceases to
be pure mirth just as soon as the end, say the invention of a
witticism, is envisaged as a solid personal advantage, such as
heightened reputation.84
A like remark applies to the intrusion of the serious attitude into
play when this takes on an elaborate form requiring some
concentration of attention. This does not destroy the playful
character of the activity so long as the end is not viewed as matter
of serious import. In this respect, too, laughter resembles play, for
we may take considerable pains in shaping our practical joke without
ever losing hold of fun as our end.
This brings us to another point of kinship between play and
laughter. Each, though marked off from the things of the real serious
world, has to do with these in a manner. The play both of animals
and of children is largely pretence, that is to say, the production of a
semblance of an action of serious life, involving some consciousness
of its illusory character. This seems inferrible, in the case of animal
play, e.g., the make-believe combats, from the palpable restriction
of the movements within the limits of the harmless.85 And with
regard to the play of the nursery, it {148} is probable that all through
a play-action there is, in spite of the look of absorbing seriousness, a
dim awareness of the make-believe. It is fairly certain that we have
to do in this case with a double or “divided” consciousness.86 And, as
has been illustrated above, laughter is wont to hover about the
domain of the serious. In both cases we find the love of pretence
playing pranks with the real world, divesting things of their
significance and value for the serious part of our mind, and
transmuting them by fancy into mere appearances for our
amusement.
Another point of similarity may be just alluded to. Recent
discussions on the nature of play have served to bring out its utility
or serviceableness. Not only is the sportive activity of children and
young animals of physiological benefit as wholesome exercise, it is
now seen to be valuable as a preliminary practice of actions which
later on become necessary. Thus in play-combats children and young
animals begin to learn the arts of skilful attack and defence.87 Much
of this benefit of play-activity is due to the circumstance that it is a
mode of organised co-operation and supplies a kind of training for
the serious social activity of later years. I shall hope to show later
that laughter has a like value, not merely as a source of physiological
benefit to the individual, but as helping us to become fit members of
society. It seems hardly needful to point out that since the fact of
this utility is known neither to the player nor to the laugher, it does
not in the least affect the truth of our contention, that their activity
is not controlled by external ends which have a practical or other
serious value. {149}
Our comparison justifies us in identifying play and mirth, so far
as to say that when we play and when we laugh our mood is
substantially the same. Common language seems to support this
view. “Fun,” “frolic,” “sport,” “pastime,” these and the like may be
said to cover at once all joyous play and all varieties of mirth. We are
justified, therefore, in making the principle of play fundamental in
our theory of laughter.88 We may now proceed to illustrate rather
more fully the presence of the play-attitude in the higher domain of
laughter, the enjoyment of ludicrous spectacle.
To begin with, much of the laughable illustrated above may be
regarded as an expression in persons or things of the play-mood
which seizes the spectator by way of a sympathetic resonance.
Examples have been given in the laughter excited by the spectacle
of aimless actions which have the look of frolicsomeness. As our
name “word-play” clearly suggests, verbal jokes are recognised as
an outcome of the play-mood which throws off for the nonce the
proper serious treatment of language. Again, the odd when it
reaches the height of the extravagant has an unmistakable look of
play-license. Much of the amusing effect of disguise, of pretence,
including certain kinds of “aping,” appears to involve some
recognition of the make-believe aspect of play. The disorderly, even
when it applies to a room, is, to say the least, powerfully suggestive
of the ways of rompish play. Many irregularities of thought and
action readily take on the look of a self-abandonment to play; for
example, irrelevances and confusions of idea, droll, aimless-looking
actions, such as going off the scene and coming back again and
again, {150} senseless repetitions of actions by the same person or by
others—a common entertainment of the circus and the popular play-
house. As a last example, we may instance the effect of the
incongruous when it assumes a trifling aspect on a solemn occasion.
This is surely amusing because it is so like the interruptions of child’s
play.
How far can this principle be carried? May not a good deal of the
amusingly incongruous in behaviour and in circumstances, of
intellectual and of moral collapse, when this wears the aspect of
folly, be said to affect us as an expression of the play-mood? And is
not our amusement at the sight of certain mischances which have
the look of a tripping up, an outwitting or befooling, either by others
or by circumstance or “fate,” traceable to a perception of something
indistinguishable from playful teasing?
Yet we must not rely on this expression of the playful too much.
There seem to be many cases of the laughable, for example,
amusing vices, absences of mind, and all irrelevances which bring in
the solemn where it is out of place, where that which is expressed is
a mood the very opposite of the playful. Nor do we need to push this
principle to an extreme. Even if the laughable spectacle does not
wear the look of a play-challenge, it can bring up the playful mood in
the spectator in another way. It may so present its particular feature
as to throw us off our serious balance, and by a sweet compulsion
force us to play with it rather than to consider it seriously. A brief
reference to our store of laughable things may suffice to illustrate
this.
To begin with our laughter at novelties, the odd, the extravagant,
what is it but the outcome of a play-impulse, a gay caprice which
wills for the instant not to take objects seriously, but to disregard
their real nature and significance, {151} practical, theoretical, and
even æsthetic, for the joy of making them playthings for the eye?
Or, if the suggestion of a rule, broken by the newcomer into our field
of perception, obtrudes itself, our laughter announces that the
infraction does not matter, that the violation of custom’s good law
itself is passed over and turned into fun by the blithe play-spirit in
us.
It is the same with mischances, awkward fixes, and all sorts of
moral and intellectual shortcomings. These things obviously have in
them what should appeal to our seriousness: they come up for
judgment as pitiable, as regrettable, often as distinctly culpable. Yet
we laugh and cast aside our judicial responsibilities just because the
mood of the moment disposes us to be indulgent, and because the
attitude we take up in viewing the offence as a little one instantly
brings up the love of play, the impulse to turn the significant into
enjoyable nonsense.
Once more, in our laughter at artful allusion to the obscene, it is
the same swift transition from the serious attitude to that of play
which seems to be at the bottom of our merriment. Here again it is
the littleness—a quantity, as pointed out, varying considerably with
the quality of the laugher—which disarms the serious attitude and
allures it to play.
In pretences, both hypocrisies and less serious kinds, which raise
the laugh, we note the same swift lapse into the play-attitude. For, in
order to enjoy these vain shows with perfect gaiety, we must be
ready to bring a mental “blind spot” to bear on everything in them
which has serious moral significance. Here, too, we take a leap into
the world of the player, transmuting what has something of
seriousness, something even of offending hurtfulness, into a mere
plaything. {152}
The more intellectual varieties of the ludicrous disclose the same
deep-seated characteristic. The incongruous, the absurd, the tricks
of ambiguous speech, these are things which offend us as serious
mortals bent on having consistency of ideas and clearness of
utterance in our social world. They evoke our laughter when they
take such a form as to upset this serious attitude and to win us over
to regarding them as nothing but entertaining show.
In all the more intellectual laughter at things we seem to find the
perfect form of the mind’s play. I say “perfect” because psychologists
as well as others are wont to speak of poetic imagination as playful
activity, though this, as controlled by the ends of art, is seriousness
itself compared with the freer movements of ideas when the sportive
temper takes us.
One other illustration of the rôle of the playful spirit in the sphere
of the laughable must not be overlooked. I have dealt with the
intrusion of the trivial into solemn scenes as an expression of the
child’s playfulness. But, as has been suggested above, it is more
than this. Scenes of great formality, where a degree of severe self-
control is enforced which is trying to mortals of only a limited gravity,
are apt to throw us into a state of highly unstable equilibrium. Hence
the welcome we are disposed to give to anything which touches the
playful susceptibilities in us. Under such circumstances small
occurrences, which at other times would pass wholly unmarked, are
grasped at and become laughable things for us, just because of the
great necessity of man to escape now and again into the freedom of
play.
As already implied, this saturation of laughter with the spirit of
playfulness is characteristic only of the gayer kind, that which is
purified from all tinge of seriousness. So far {153} as our jocose
impulses lend themselves to serious purposes, as for example in the
laughter of satire, the playful character tends to become less clearly
recognisable. Not that here, too, we are unable to find a
resemblance between laughter and play; for, as we know, much of
what we call play or sport has its serious interest, and the player, like
the laugher, may easily slip across the line which divides the playful
from the serious attitude. Nevertheless, we shall need to insist on
the point that laughter is a thing of different tones, some more
playful than others, and that its nature and its function can only be
clearly determined by distinguishing these.
The result of our inquiry is that the impressions of the laughable
cannot be reduced to one or two principles. Our laughter at things is
of various tones. It gathers up into itself a number of primitive
tendencies; it represents the products of widely removed stages of
intellectual and moral evolution. This is virtually admitted by all who
recognise the Intellectual and the Moral principle; for our laughter at
seeing dignity unfrocked is presumably of more ancient origin than
the “laughter of the mind,” which discoursers on the ludicrous are for
the most part thinking of. Our argument takes us farther, namely, to
the conclusion that the effect of the laughable, even of what is given
by philosophers as a sample of the ludicrous, is a highly complex
feeling, containing something of the child’s joyous surprise at the
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Pa r t 1 : Da tab as e C as e s U sing M icrosoft Access

Pa r t 2 : D ec is io n S u p p o r t C ases Using M icrosoft Excel Scenario

Pa r t 3 : De c is io n S u p p o r t C ases Using M icrosoft Excel Solver

Pa r t 4 : I nteg ratio n C a s e s Using M icrosoft Access and Excel

Pa r t 5 : Adva n ce d S kills U sing M icrosoft Excel

Part 1: Database Cases Using Microsoft Access

Tutorial A: Database Design

Tutorial B: Microsoft Access

Part 2: Decision Support Cases Using Microsoft Excel Scenario Manager

Tutorial C: Building a Decision Support System in Excel

Part 3: Decision Support Cases Using ­Microsoft Excel Solver

Tutorial D: Building a Decision Support System Using Microsoft Excel Solver

Part 4: Integration Cases Using Microsoft Access and Excel

Part 5: Advanced Skills Using Microsoft Excel

Tutorial E: Guidance for Excel Cases

INDIVIDUAL CASE DESIGN

USING THE CASES AND TUTORIALS

Database Design Concepts

Database Design Rules

Example: The Talent Agency

Six Database Design Rules

Field Name Data Type

Band Name (primary key) Text

Band Phone Number Text

Desired Fee Currency

FIGURE A-1 The Band table and its fields

Band Name (primary key) Band Phone Number Desired Fee

Heartbreakers 981 831 1765 $800

Lightmetal 981 831 2000 $700

FIGURE A-2 Records in the Band table

Field Name Data Type

Member ID Number (primary key) Text

Member Name Text

Band Name (foreign key) Text

FIGURE A-3 The Band Member table and its fields

0001 Jamal Marshall Heartbreakers Guitar 981 444 1111

0002 Chantal Marshall Heartbreakers Vocals 981 444 1234

0003 Tirsa Abboud Heartbreakers Keyboard 981 555 1199

0004 Diego Flores Lightmetal Sax 981 888 1654

0005 Sue Hoopes Lightmetal Piano 981 888 1765

FIGURE A-4 Records in the Band Member table

Field Name Data Type

Club Name (primary key) Text

Contact Name Text

Club Phone Number Text

Preferred Fee Currency

Feed Band? Yes/No

FIGURE A-5 The Club table and its fields

Two records in the Club table are shown in Figure A-6.

FIGURE A-6 Records in the Club table

Field Name Data Type

Band Name (foreign key) Text

Club Name (foreign key) Text

Booking Date Date/Time

Start Time Date/Time

End Time Date/Time

Some records in the Bookings table are shown in Figure A-8.

Heartbreakers East End 11/21/20 21:30 23:30 $800

Heartbreakers East End 11/22/20 21:00 23:30 $750

Pa r t 2 : D ec is io n S u p p o r t C ases Using M icrosoft Excel Scenario

Part 3: Decision Support Cases Using Microsoft Excel Solver