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Data Management: Tidy Data

How to manage data.

Tidy Data Introduction

Tidy Data and Spreadsheet Structure

Tidy data is a standard used for datasets that form tables.  Essentially, tidying helps make initial data exploration and analysis easier.  Additionally, since the data is set in a standard formatted way, the dataset can be interoperable, and time is not wasted rearranging the data.  The principles of tidy data are:

  • Every case/observation has its own row
  • Every variable has its own column
  • Each value has its own cell

Tidy Data Example

 An example of raw data (a) and how it can be transformed into tidy data (b).  The tidy data has one observation per row, one variable per column and one value per cell.