Big Data in Small Slices

"""Dianne combines deep expertise in computer science with her years as a journalist to write a compelling book about using data to tell stories. Written in a journalistic style (i.e. interesting and fun), she walks readers through the opportunities and challenges of big data sets. The book and accompanying website encourage readers to dig into the data and get their hands dirty, and help them feel safe and confident to experiment."" – Karen Weintraub, Journalist at USA Today ""We live in an era when vast amounts of data are at journalists' fingertips, providing new opportunities for reporting and investigating. But making sense of that flood of data and communicating it to a general audience requires training. Dianne Finch's book provides a detailed, yet easy-to-use, guide for data visualization, and will be an excellent resource for both journalism teachers and students."" – Sharon Weinberger, author of The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World ""This book will be an essential tool in training the future generation of communicators, including both journalists and scientists struggling to build their research programs in an impossibly vast sea of data."" – Tim Ford, Professor and Chair of Biomedical and Nutritional Sciences, UMass Lowell ""Life isn’t easily categorized, and Dianne Finch’s work on data visualization makes that abundantly clear. In the chapter on malaria, Dianne compellingly shows how charts and maps can guide a journalist to ask informed questions. She goes beyond parasites, insect vectors, and drugs used to treat the disease to illustrate the issues that seem unrelated to health at first glance but dramatically impact the delivery of help desperately needed. This guide to best practices in data visualization will help you tame the ominous-sounding Big Data – in small slices."" – Jeff Porter, Missouri School of Journalism"