Describing Data

Need for presenting data

To make it more useful in the sense that vital information are highlighted as compared to its raw form (unprocessed). Purpose to be able to present vital characteristics of the data itself such as DISTRIBUTION.
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Distribution

Tells us what are the values the specific variable assumes and how often each variable occurs. For categorical variables, it shows all possible categories and the count or percent of all observations falling on specific categories.
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Methods of Presenting (organizing) data

Textual Tabular Graphical

Textual

Highlights of the data presented are presented in narrative from which more often is brief and concise. One disadvantage of this method is that there is a tendency to loose a lot of details that are important in the analysis due to the possibility of omitting important information (selective reporting). More useful for persons who do not have much time to look into all details.
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Textual Method - Example

A total of 22.4 million children aged 5-17 years old in 9.6 million households were estimated from the National Survey of Working Children (NSWC).
Sixteen percent (16%) or 3.6 million children were reportedly engaged in economic activities at any time in 1995. Boys were more likely to work than girls with a national sex ratio of working children of 187.
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Tabular

Processed data is presented in tables (often referred to as statistical tables). It has the advantage of brevity but at the same time showing more details as compared to the textual method. Data in tables can further be manipulated (e.g. computation of some descriptive statistics)
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REGION

TOTAL NUMBER OF POOR HHs 243,424 143,208 274,385 287,197 182,946 558,876 463,166 368,356 281,888 224,885 259,005 142,291 278,353 125,219 88,866 269,581 175,918 4,367,564
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Example
FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION TABLE

Ilocos Cagayan Valley Central Luzon CALABARZON MIMAROPA Bicol Western Visayas Central Visayas

Philippine Poverty Statistics 2000

Eastern Visayas Zamboanga Peninsula Northern Mindanao Davao Region

Frequency Distribution Table For Qualitative Data: Column 1 are the categories and Column 2 are the frequencies.

SOCCSARGEN NCR CAR ARMM Caraga TOTAL

Parts of a Statistical Table

Table 1. Total number of poor households by region. 2000.
TOTAL NUMBER OF POOR HHs 243,424 143,208 274,385 287,197 182,946 558,876 463,166 368,356 281,888 224,885 259,005 142,291 278,353 125,219

Table Heading includes the table number and title. Caption designations or identifications of the information contained in a column usually found at the top of the column.

REGION Ilocos Cagayan Valley Central Luzon CALABARZON MIMAROPA Bicol Western Visayas Central Visayas Eastern Visayas Zamboanga Peninsula Northern Mindanao Davao Region SOCCSARGEN NCR

Body main part of the table containing the information or figures presented.

CAR
ARMM Caraga TOTAL

88,866
269,581 175,918 4,367,564

Stubs or classes the classification or categories describing/summarizing the data and is usually found at the left hand side (first column) of the table.
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Graphical

Data is presented using graphs, pictures. More user friendly and trends can easily be spotted or seen as well as outliers. May be manipulated to show unreal changes or making it appear there are large/dramatic differences. Some details of the data are lost.

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100,000

200,000

300,000

400,000

500,000

600,000

Ilocos Cagayan Central Luzon CALABARZON MIMAROPA Bicol Western Central Eastern Zamboanga Northern Davao Region SOCCSARGEN NCR CAR ARMM Caraga
TOTAL NUMBER OF POOR HHs

Bar Charts
BAR CHART

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Example Pie Charts

TOTAL NUMBER OF POOR HHs Ilocos Cagayan Valley Central Luzon CALABARZON MIMAROPA Bicol Western Visayas Central Visayas Eastern Visayas Zamboanga Peninsula Northern Mindanao Davao Region SOCCSARGEN NCR CAR ARMM Caraga

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100,000

200,000

300,000

400,000

500,000

600,000

C
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Frequency Polygons

en tra lL uz on

Ilo co s

TOTAL NUMBER OF POOR HHs

M IM A W R O es P te A rn V is E ay as as te rn V N is or ay th as er n M in da S O na C o C S A R G E N C C A ar a

ga

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Stem Plots (Stem and Leaf Plot)

Arranges data by its stems and leaves. Consider the following data (hypothetical)

25, 85, 45, 50, 89, 87, 85, 75, 60, 55, 58, 55, 56, 62, 65, 72, 66, 74, 76, 55
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Stem Plots

Arrange observations in increasing order

25, 45, 50, 55, 55, 55, 56, 58, 60, 62, 65, 66, 72, 74, 75, 76, 85, 85, 87, 89

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Stem Plots

For each datum, identify its leaf (the units digit) and its stem (all other digits except the last or units digit) Example: 89 9(leaf) 8(stem) 125 5(leaf) 12(stem)

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Stem Plots
8 5579

List the stems vertically in increasing order from top to bottom. Draw a vertical line to the right of the stems List the leaves to the corresponding stem to the right of the line in an increasing order

7 2456 6 0256 5 055568 4 5 3 2 5

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Stem Plot

Similar to a bar-chart but some details are kept. Illustrate overall shape of the distribution like symmetry and skewness. Can easily detect marked distributions from the overall shape (gaps, extreme values). For data sets that will result to few leaves but many stems, one may consider rounding data (e.g. tenths, tens, hundreds, thousands, millions, etc.)
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