Part II Collecting and analysing data The problem here is easy to spot: the sex of the individuals is recorded in different ways. Entering the data in a standardized way reduces these errors. This means making choices about how the data can be represented consistently. Data that tends to be recorded inconsistently includes: • Dates and times: 01 July 2005, July 1st 2005, 1/7/2005 or 20050701 are all ways of representing the same date. • Names: For example, do you use ‘United Nations’ or ‘UN’? Do you use a person’s first and second names in different columns or in the same column? • Places: How specific do you need to be when describing geographical data? Do you use a country’s administrative geography (e.g. town, city, district), electoral geography (ward, constituency) or operational geography? The key point is to consider the different ways of recording data, make a choice and then apply it consistently. It will save an enormous amount of time and frustration. The second issue is how to “code” (or classify) the data. This is particularly important if you are recording qualitative data that you will subject to quantitative analysis. For example, say you want to record information about schools you have visited, classifying them as either “small”, “medium” or “large”. When you and your colleagues review the spreadsheet, you need to be confident that each time you see a school described as “small” it means the same thing. To ensure the data is coded consistently, you could design a set of coding rules to let everyone working on the data know that: • Small = between 0 and 99 students • Medium = between 100 and 499 students • Large = between 500 and 999 students. It is crucial to make sure that everyone entering the data follows the same rules each time. 8.1.4. Locking rows and columns Before you start sorting your data, it is sometimes useful to “lock” the top row and/or the first column of your spreadsheet, particularly if the spreadsheet you are working with is large. This means you can always tell what each row and/or column refers to. For example, you may have downloaded data on government spending on education as a percentage of GDP for all countries for the years 1990–2014. This will include many rows and many columns of data. To keep the years and the country names visible, these rows and columns can be “locked” so that they do not disappear as you move around your spreadsheet. To lock the top row of your sheet, select the “View” tab at the top of the page, select “Freeze Panes” and then “Freeze Top Row”. To lock the first column of your sheet, repeat the steps above but select “Freeze First Column”. As shown below, to lock both, move your cursor into the cell next to the column and the row you would like to lock, then select “Freeze Panes” under the “Freeze Panes” option. Chapter 8: Analysing data: A short introduction to working with spreadsheets | 85