6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday, 7 Oct. 2008- "Yup, it IS about following the money. But how to make sense of those numbers?"
Every election season, new web sites come along that make it easier to follow the money -- election money. Tonight we will look at some of those and focus on how to get that data off the web site and into a spreadsheet. Then what? A short intro to slicing-and-dicing the numbers. (Even if you are a spreadsheet maven, please come and act as a coach.)
Notes:
A resource for Desktop Notekeeping utilities: http://www.panvasoft.com/eng2/list1/1/5/
Walk through how to copy data off web site and paste into Excel
Demo how easy it is to "Export to Excel."
1st step: create new row and insert URL in that row at the top or use the "INSERT -->COMMENT" command
Click on green triangle in some of the cells. Discuss why it is important that the spreadsheet gods recognize the difference between characters that are TEXT and characters that are NUMERALS.
Note that not all of the headers -- or labels -- for the columns/variable came in. Enter them.
Why the "Memo Code"? Just about every candidate will have to return come contributions for often very good and legit reasons. A good, up-to-date DB will enter those types of transactions.
Now that you have the data in YOUR spreadsheet, you can start to sort it in various ways and also create your own "Memo" column. HOWEVER, NEVER NEVER DO YOUR ANALYTIC WORK ON YOUR ORIGINAL DATA. SAVE THIS WITH AN EASILY RECOGNIZABLE NAME -- ORIGINAL LUJAN CONTRIBUTIONS FEC. THE SAVE IT AGAIN "ORIGINAL LUJAN CONTRIBUTIONS FEC v2" And every time you make major changes, save again with a slightly new file name. Enter these steps in your Lab Record as well.