Data analysis - definition?

[Maisie2007]

Hi!

I want to know what generally is the definition of, and if the following is data analysis:

exporting info from a program to excel, formatting, sorting, excluding, adding information? Or do you have to be calculating things in order to be doing data analysis?

Thanks!

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

Data analysis: What are the characteristices of this data? How can it be reduced and summarized?

Can involve sorting, filtering, aggregating, augmenting with additional data elements to extend or clarify the data. This might include lookups and other formulas.

Quite often, with a new type of data source, I'll use a tool like PivotTable in order to discover the content and extend of certain elements. It might reveal, not only what data is there, but also what data is not there. What are the date limits? What cost centers are included? What elements are dependent on other elements.

You migh need to get data from other sources to augment the data, depending on the requirement. You might use an data import or database query to get other data. You might join data from different sheets in order to bring elements together for further analysis and reporting.

Once you have a robust understanding of the data, it is easier to decide how to report the data, which, in itself, is a kind of data analysis: some sort of deliverable product.

Skip,
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[fneily]

Having spent a little over 20 years in my life in so called data analysis, just remember your data analysis can be right, wrong, distorted. And it doesn't have to be numeric. I taught a course where I had each student take some "statistic" stated by a lawyer, psychologist or democrat, and retrieve the raw data on which that statistic was supposively based. If found, they would run a correct analysis on it. Most of the time, the above group of people just made up a number. They still do.
And if you're the one doing the data analysis which your company or supervisor is basing their decisions on, you basically control the outcome. Would you turn in some data analysis report showing that your job is not needed?
SAS, a well known statistical package, in some of their built in procedures, has a parameter known as "fudge".