{"id":3581,"date":"2013-09-04T00:18:22","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T05:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/?p=3581"},"modified":"2013-09-04T00:18:22","modified_gmt":"2013-09-04T05:18:22","slug":"exploring-your-data-with-sas-enterprise-guide-important-basics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/exploring-your-data-with-sas-enterprise-guide-important-basics\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Your Data with SAS Enterprise Guide: Important Basics"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m doing a Hands-On Workshop in Las Vegas at the Western Users of SAS Software conference in November<\/a>. When they asked me for some topics, I thought about factor analysis or categorical data analysis, but I’m already doing a couple of other talks on those procedures.<\/p>\n

I really felt like one of the most overlooked parts of data analysis was exploring your data and getting cozy with it.<\/p>\n

\"Maria<\/p>\n

So, I’m talking about exploratory data analysis, with a focus on the basics. There is a lot of talk about BIG data, but many of us spend our days with not-very-big-at-all data where a few errant records here and there can throw off your results.<\/p>\n

Also, I don’t think SAS Enterprise Guide was really designed for ginormous data sets.<\/p>\n

My workshop uses data from the pilot study for 7 Generation Games. Before you can go out and collect enormous amounts of data, you need to pilot your measures, your methods – and at this stage it really is important to understand your data.<\/p>\n

One quick tip \u00a0—<\/p>\n

If you do the Characterize Data task (which you always should), it produces a data set of frequency distributions and another of univariate statistics. Notice in the second of the three pop-up windows, that’s the default. People often ignore those data sets created, which is too bad,<\/p>\n

\"Characterize<\/a><\/p>\n

You can use the univariate statistics data set to create tables like the one below, selecting which descriptive statistics and variables you want.<\/p>\n

\"Report<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Of much more use than simple reports like this, you can sort your univariate statistics data set to get things like items in order of difficulty. \u00a0As always, I have way more material than I can fit in the time allotted, but one part I will definitely keep in is the usefulness of these data sets for getting a second quick look at your data. (The first is the Characterize Data task. Didn’t you just read that I said you should always do it? Sheesh!)<\/p>\n

If you’re interested, you can come to the presentation, “Telling stories with your data – graphs, tables and basic, basic statistics with SAS Enterprise Guide”<\/em> in Las Vegas in November. Or you can check back on this blog as I ramble on about it while writing my paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m doing a Hands-On Workshop in Las Vegas at the Western Users of SAS Software conference in November. When they asked me for some topics, I thought about factor analysis or categorical data analysis, but I’m already doing a couple of other talks on those procedures. I really felt like one of the most overlooked…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-de-mars-general-life-ramblings","category-software","category-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3581"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3592,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581\/revisions\/3592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}