Month: September 2018

This Google Sheets exercise is a simple intro to databases and visualization. Learn spreadsheets to do more.

Data to graphics 101 with Google Sheets. Excel will do the same.Tableau Public is an online tool.

Assignment: Complete the pie chart and embed it in a WordPress post.

 

This is an update of a Knight Tutorial.

Go to Google Sheets

ss open ss

Click Blank  to create a new Spreadsheet. Note the following features:

  • The menu bar lets you select different commands to change your spreadsheet.
  • A cell is an individual square where you can double-click and type in information.
  • The cells are organized into rows (assigned numbers) and columns (assigned letters).
  • (This screenshot is from is older Google.)

3

Here’s what the 2017 edition looks like.

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Make a pie chart

The pie chart is the most ubiquitous of charts. Here’s what it is and when to use it.

  • It is a circle divided into segments.
  •  It should illustrate the relationship of the parts of a total.
  • The data may be numeric but it is usually displayed in percentages.
  •  Never more than 5 parts. If you have more than five subsets, consider a TreeMap.

Save your spreadsheet and call it “Pie Chart.” You only have to do this once. The document will autosave as you make changes.

Fill in the data as shown below. Select cell A1 by clicking it once. Hold down the Shift key and click in Cell B4 to select the range of data

Screen Shot 2017-09-30 at 4.38.07 PM

Click on “Insert” in the Google Menu Bar and select “Charts.” A new window will appear

The “Chart editor” will recommend charts for your data. Under “chart type” choose pie chart. You can customize typeface, color, etc.  Hit insert and the chart will show up on your spread sheet.

Click the menu — three little dots –on the upper right corner of the chart and choose “Publish chart.”  (You also have the option to copy or save chart as an image here. )

Get link or embed code.

Screen Shot 2017-09-30 at 4.55.54 PM

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Here’s what the pie chart looks like embedded.

Deadly hot dogs: Why nutrition studies are so hard to cover

When I was newspaper reporter, an epidemiological study came out of UNC that found a correlation between the consumption of hot dogs and brain tumors in kids. As I recall, this caught the attention of parents in the newsroom, possibly  fueled by the number of hot dogs consumed by the children of editors.

These are tough stories because they seem to offer nutrition advice. But it can be hard to explain that:

    1. Correlation and cause are different.
    2.  Rarely is a single study definitive.

So, now we see the topic debated by two bigs names in science. One made his name doing studies like this and another who has made his name by challenging the validity of out current approaches to scientific research.

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From John Ioannidis – respected skeptic, former Tufts researcher

Some nutrition scientists and much of the public often consider epidemiologic associations of nutritional factors to represent causal effects that can inform public health policy and guidelines. However, the emerging picture of nutritional epidemiology is difficult to reconcile with good scientific principles. The field needs radical reform.

Response from respected Harvard nutrition researcher Walter Willett

In a September 14, Medscape article, Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition, said the argument in the JAMA commentary is unconvincing and misrepresents existing nutrition literature. He maintained that the author greatly exaggerated the challenges of epidemiological research.

 

Debating the value of nutrition research

More on Ioannidis:

 

 

Crossing The Divide: A reporting road trip

Video below is about the project. Find the stories here.

“Crossing the Divide” was a reporting road trip that took five early-career journalists across America during a time of deep divisions. This multimedia and multi-platform reporting project was a co-production of The GroundTruth Project and WGBH Youth Media, and also included partnerships with local media outlets, public universities and public high schools across the country, and storytelling organizations.