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This is the second (and final) article looking at key aspects of datasets. Having previously covered relevance, accuracy, and precision, here we will consider consistency, completeness and size.

Consistency

On the 23rd of September 1999, NASA's Mars Climate…

As discussed in Part 1 the quirks of our time-keeping systems can lead to "interesting" patterns in time series charts. Here's the example I used previously for ease of reference:

To summarize the significant bits of this chart in words…

I've previously explained that it is essential that the bars of bar charts start at 0. The reasoning is simple: we use relative lengths of bars to compare values, so starting a bar somewhere else leads to false judgements. But what about line charts…

If you browse through a large, printed, newspaper and pick out all the charts you find you'll probably come across some of the following: bar chart, timeseries (line chart), pie chart, donut chart, stacked area chart. You may come across the odd scatter…

Whether compiling your own dataset or using somebody else's, there's huge potential for wasting both time and money if the data isn't fit for purpose. This is the first article in a two-part series taking a (largely qualitative) look at evaluating the…