Managing Data Using Excel

Managing Data Using Excel ... ... is a new book by Mark Gardener, published by Pelagic Publishing.* It is subtitled Organising, summarising and visualising scientific data . Clearly the book is aimed at scientists, particularly those dealing with the analysis of observational data, but is it of value to a wider audience? Having worked through the book I would say that it is definitely worthwhile for many other groups, including those in engineering and other branches of science and technology, and also those in commercial and marketing work dealing with the analysis of numerical data of any kind. Aspects of the book that I found particularly useful were: * Detailed and clear descriptions of the use of pivot tables in the analysis and summary of numerical data of any kind (an area where I could certainly make more use of the features available in Excel) * Clearly laid out procedures for arranging, checking and exploring data. * Detailed procedures for display of data in a wide variety of graphs. * Detailed step-by step example spreadsheets available from the publisher's web-site. This is certainly not a book for dummies , and some may find the emphasis on scientific procedures off-putting, but for those willing to spend some time working through the examples I believe it will be of value to anyone who uses Excel to organise, summarise and visualise numerical data of any kind. * Pelagic Publishing provided me with a free copy of the book for this review; I have no other connection with the publishers or the author. -- Doug Jenkins Newton Excel Bach blog