4.1 - Excel exam

Tuesday, February 4

Sabri Tuzcu via Unsplash

(Thursday is at the bottom of the page)

In class

You’ve made it through the Excel sprint. If you’ve kept up, the exam will not be hard – you’ve seen it all before.

Your Excel exam will take up the whole period. It is open book, open Internet, open notes, etc. but it is to be done individually. You are not allowed to consult one another on it.

Prepare for the test

  • Read “The Serial Killer Detector,” the New Yorker, Nov. 27, 2017 about Tom Hargrove’s career as a data reporter and how it led to the Murder Accountability Project. (It’ll make sense when you see the test. )

  • Just go back through what you’ve already done. There won’t be anything new.

Some tips:

  • Don’t forget to read any documentation available on the data.
  • Read the questions carefully. They’re not intended to be trick questions, but there might be ways to misinterpret. Ask during class if there’s any clarification needed.
  • Spend as much time thinking about stories and newsworthiness as thinking about the technical aspects.
  • Check your accuracy, especially in rounding and phrasing.

Due this week

Sunday, Feb. 9: 1st self-assessment on Canvas

Sunday, Feb. 9: Your algorithm (we may finish this in class as a lab) . You may want to review “A gentle introduction to programming” from the R study guide

If you plan to use R on your own laptop, please follow the instructions in Introduction to R and R Studio to install it locally.

If you plan to use it in the cloud, please sign up for a free account in https://rstudio.cloud . Do this sometime before class on Tuesday, Feb. 11. You do NOT need to go through the whole chapter of the Introduction to R and R Studio before class.

Thursday

In class

  • Review of the Excel exam
  • Let’s talk maps! There are a few readings / watchings / listenings listed below.
  • A gentle introduction to programming and coding (We’ll go through this in class - you don’t have to read it in advance.)
  • Lab (if there’s time): Write your own algorithm.

Reading

  • “Early Voting changes hit NC rural voters hardest…”, Tyler Dukes, WRAL.com . You can choose either the digital or broadcast version (linked about halfway down.)
  • “One Trump Tax Cut was Meant to Help the Poor. A billionaire ended up winning big,” Jeff Ernsthausen and Justin Elliott, ProPublica, June 19, 2019. You can choose the digital or podcast version (linked about halway down.)
  • Explore some of the Pulitzer Prize-winning project, “The Wall,” from the Arizona Republic, 2018. You obviously don’t have to review the whole thing – pick a piece that intrigues you. (One weird thing about this project - it’s actually not easy to find the way it was originally presented - it was repackaged after the Pulitzer.)
  • And here’s something REALLY old: “Little action on lead warnings”, by Monte Reel and Sarah Cohen, Washington Post, March 14, 2004. (Starts in the middle of Page One.)

Optional: “America’s Ring of Fire”, Reveal news podcast, originally aired Oct. 8, 2016.