This exercise involves you working with an already acquired dataset to undertake the remaining three key steps of examining, transforming and exploring your data to develop a deep familiarisation with its properties and qualities. This spreadsheet provides you with two contrasting worksheets showing snapshot details of recorded deaths caused by US law enforcement agencies, from The Guardian (“The Counted“) and the Washington Post (“Fatal Force“). For each dataset:

 

Examination: Articulate the meaning of the data (its representativeness and phenomenon) and thoroughly examine the physical properties (type, size, condition) noting down your descriptions in each case. Compare what the two datasets offer and contrast their differences.

 

Transformation: What could you do/would you need to do to clean or modify the existing data? What other data could you imagine would be valuable to consolidate the existing data?

 

Exploration: Use a tool of your choice (recommendations would be Tableau, R) to visually explore the two datasets separately in order to deepen your appreciation of their physical properties and their discoverable qualities (insights) to help you cement your understanding of their respective value.