David Herzog is an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, where he also serves as the academic adviser to the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. He was a fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute, where he launched OpenMissouri.org, a directory of data held offline by state agencies. Before arriving at the School of Journalism in 2002, he worked as a newspaper reporter at The Providence Journal, The Baltimore Sun and The Morning Call in Allentown, PA. He is a native of Bethlehem, PA.
A practical, skill-based introduction to data analysis and literacy We are swimming in a world of data, and this handy guide will keep you afloat while you learn to make sense of it all. In Data Literacy: A User's Guide, David Herzog, a journalist with a decade of experience using data analysis to transform information into captivating storytelling, introduces students and professionals to the fundamentals of data literacy, a key skill in today’s world. Assuming the reader has no advanced knowledge of data analysis or statistics, this book shows how to create insight from publicly-available data through exercises using simple Excel functions. Extensively illustrated, step-by-step instructions within a concise, yet comprehensive, reference will help readers identify, obtain, evaluate, clean, analyze and visualize data. A concluding chapter introduces more sophisticated data analysis methods and tools including database managers such as Microsoft Access and MySQL and standalone statistical programs such as SPSS, SAS and R.
