This article explores contrasting approaches to the study of oversight by state legislatures. A focus on individual orientations and behavior, which has dominated such study, reveals attempts by legislators to maximize credit, achieve concrete results, and avoid making additional trouble for themselves. It indicates that little oversight is performed. By contrast, a focus on institutional activity-primarily by special commissions and committees and their staffs-indicates that substantially more oversight is performed. The apparent contradiction is reconciled by taking into account institutional incentives as they influence the motivations of a minority of members. The major problem is an analytical one, in which an unwarranted "aggregative leap" is made from the individual on the one hand to the institution on the other.