Turning 100 survey sheets into a graph: what comes first? — Tables and data
The graph is just the last box. It's won or lost in making and fixing the table.
1 · Think first
Don't draw scattered info straight into a graph. Stick to this order: gather → table → fix → graph.
Tables have a rule: one entry per row, one value per cell. Once things are lined up like this, people and AI can both calculate right away.
What AI is good at is lining things up and calculating. Whether units got mixed, there are blanks, or a weird value snuck in — you have to look for that yourself.
2 · Experiment · Put it in order
Try it — From 100 survey sheets to a graph
Tap the mixed-up pieces in the right order. If you skip a step, you'll find out where things break.
Tap the pieces below in the order you think is right.
Figure
Four boxes from info to graph
Skip a box and the final picture wobbles.
3 · Quiz
Quick check
Three questions. Pick an answer and it's marked right away, with the reason why.
Today in one line
Today in one line
The graph is just the last box.
It's won or lost in making and fixing the table.
Learn more
- A paper that turned "one entry per row, one value per cell" into rules — make tables this way and calculating gets easy — Tidy Data (Journal of Statistical Software, 2014)
- A study that found AI got much more accurate when it handed the math to code instead of doing it in its head — PAL: Program-aided Language Models (2022)