Analyzing Data

Now I am ready to analyze my data. First of all I need to gather all my data into one pile, since I have it all over the place. Then I have to spend hours upon hours trying to calculate the distance in miles each place is from New Orleans. I will use Google map to help me calculate the miles. After that I have to put all of my data into Excel. This, too, will be a time consuming process. I will have two columns; one column will have the number of miles, and the other column will be the number of people. After that I will have to arrange the data in ascending order by miles. This is an extremely easy process because all I have to do is click a button and voila the data will be in ascending order by miles. Then I have to figure out how I was going to make a box plot. Well I figure out that making a box plot in Excel is very complicated. So I use this website http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/BoxPlot/?version=1.6.0_10&browser=Mozilla&vendor=Sun_Microsystems_Inc. to help me in my process with making a box plot. This interactive box plot really helps simplify the process of making one. All I have to do is copy and paste the data into this, and tada I got me a box plot that can identify outliers. Another graph I need to do is a histogram. I have learned how to make a histogram in Excel before so it will not be too hard. The only problem I might have is figuring the scale for my category. I want to use a scale that seems appropriate to my data and does not significantly skew my data. I also want a scale that will make my data have a Normal distribution. However I am thinking that I might have to exclude outliers so that my data have a Normal distribution. I will probably encounter a lot of problem with analyzing my data, but I will try my best to do what I want to do.