A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | |
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1 | Spreadsheets for the Uninitiated | |||||||||||||
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3 | Version: | 0.4 | Short link: | https://frama.link/spreadsheets-intro | ||||||||||
4 | Date: | 2019-11-23 | Work in progress, many sections are currently empty. | |||||||||||
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6 | Spreadsheet editors are fantastically easy to use for collecting data and computing basic statistics. | |||||||||||||
7 | As a consequence, they are widespread, and people will routinely claim that they know how to use them. | |||||||||||||
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9 | That last statement is wrong, and everything else about spreadsheet editors is also wrong. | |||||||||||||
10 | This document tries to fix what might be by teaching you (again) the basics about spreadsheet editors. | Dilbert, by Scott Adams | ||||||||||||
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12 | Google Sheets | Contents | ||||||||||||
13 | 1. Basics | Basic stuff you should already know but most likely don't | ||||||||||||
14 | This document is written in Google Sheets because it is freely available and well documented: | 2. Data | Good practices and formulas to count things or manipulate text | |||||||||||
15 | 3. Description | Descriptive (summary) statistics that everyone should know | ||||||||||||
16 | Google Sheets help pages | 4. Visualization | How to represent data with bars, lines, tables and maps | |||||||||||
17 | Google Sheets function list | 5. Association | Simple ways to test relationships between two variables | |||||||||||
18 | References | Further reading, whoch you should do but won't | ||||||||||||
19 | The help pages above are well written and contain many practical examples. | |||||||||||||
20 | Since you are going to use Google Sheets a lot, make sure to add them to your bookmarks. | |||||||||||||
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22 | Warning | |||||||||||||
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24 | Spreadsheets are as widespread and easy to use as they are error-prone. | |||||||||||||
25 | The genomics literature provides a tragicomical illustration of that (Ziemann, Eren and El-Osta 2016). | |||||||||||||
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27 | Spreadsheet editors are also far less numerically accurate than professional statistical software. | |||||||||||||
28 | Trouble may arise with things like random number generation, floating-point arithmetic, or even least-squares estimation. | |||||||||||||
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30 | Microsoft Excel (especially its old, unsupported versions) is at fault here, as are virtually all other spreadsheet editors. | |||||||||||||
31 | Since spreadsheet editors like Google Sheets are not open-source, such problems might go easily unnoticed. | |||||||||||||
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33 | For an example review of the issues mentioned above, see McCullough and Yalta (2013). | |||||||||||||
34 | The simple take-away is: learn when to shift to safer and more capable software (see Briatte 2019a for advice). | |||||||||||||
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36 | Feedback | |||||||||||||
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38 | If you want to share comments or suggestions about this spreadsheet, please email me: | |||||||||||||
39 | f.briatte@gmail.com | |||||||||||||
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41 | Please do not email me with a request to fix your spreadsheet or analyze your own data. | |||||||||||||
42 | Love letters to Excel should be addressed to Microsoft Corporation directly. | |||||||||||||
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