6.3 Homework {hw6}

6.3.1 Task

From last week’s reading (Deignan 2006), pick out some tables with frequencies and visualize them. There are several ways to visualize count data and proportions. The most common ones are bar charts and stacked bar charts. Your task is to decide which way is best and to figure out how to do it. Most of you would probably want to do this in Excel, Libre Calc or another spreadsheet program of your choice. Consult your favorite search engine. :)

In a nutshell:

  1. Pick some tables from the reading that you find interesting.
  2. Decide about the best way to visualize them.
  3. Learn how to do it and send me your figures in .pdf format.
  4. (Expert mode: Do you think the data is best presented on a log-scale?)

6.3.2 Tip of the day

Use spreadsheets! I encouraged you to create simple graphs in the last homework. That required that you enter some numbers into something like Excel, Calc or Google Sheets. We will benefit from spreadsheets throughout this course, but this is not where their utility stops. Being able to do some quick formulae and vlookups in Excel are common skills used outside Uni.

Especially for teachers, I believe, spreadsheets are an essential skill: for grades, averages, homework, quick stats on exams, lesson planning, Sitzplan (oh memories :D), what have you. If you know your way around Excel, you can speed up your tax returns (Steuererklärung) a lot, too. Many teachers end up working as freelancers. For a freelancer (and anyone else really), gathering your receipts, bills and pay slips neatly arranged and categorized as data in a spreadsheet can save you endless amounts of time and even money.

This is not where it stops though.Timetables and To-Do-Lists are also neat to do in a spreadsheet if you need more fine-grained control over the layout than the clunky online calendar you are probably using. Here are some things I have used spreadsheets for in the past: notes, training log, travel plans, shopping lists. You could even use them for recipes or counting calories if that’s what you’re into. I’ve since moved past Excel and use only plain text files. If I need to do some maths or stats I use .csv and R. That would be the ultra-nerd level so don’t be scared of a spreadsheet ;).