

Structural errors may occur during data transfer due to a slight human mistake or incompetency of the data entry personnel. Irrelevant observations mostly occur when data is generated by scraping from another data source.Īfter removing unwanted observations, the next thing to do is to make sure that the wanted observations are well-structured. Like having the price when you are only dealing with quantity.įor example, if you were building a model for prices of apartments in an estate, you don’t need data showing the number of occupants of each house. Irrelevant observations are those that don’t actually fit the specific problem that you’re trying to solve.

This can also occur in some other cases, including when a respondent makes more than one submission to a survey or error during data entry. This usually arises when the dataset is created as a result of combining data from two or more sources. Unwanted observations in a dataset are of 2 types, namely the duplicates and irrelevances.Ī data is said to be a duplicate if it is repeated in a dataset, with it having more than one occurrence.
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Since one of the main goals of data cleansing is to make sure that the dataset is free of unwanted observations, this is classified as the first step to data cleaning. Therefore, this section will be covering the steps involved in data cleaning, and further explanations on how each of these steps is carried out. Understanding the what and why behind data cleaning is one, going ahead to implement it is another. Although the issues with the data may not be completely solved, reducing it to a minimum will have a significant effect on efficiency Cleaning in data analysis is not done just to make the dataset beautiful and attractive to analysts, but to fix and avoid problems that may arise from “dirty” data.ĭata cleansing is very important to companies, as lack of it may reduce marketing effectiveness, thereby reducing sales. This way, they are able to eliminate the challenges that may arise from data sparseness and inconsistencies in formatting. Hence, the need for scientists to make sure that the data is well-formatted and rid of irrelevancies before it is used. In most cases, some of the datasets collected during research are usually littered with “dirty” data, which may lead to unsatisfactory results if used. This will be done until the data is reported to meet the data quality criteria, which include validity, accuracy, completeness, consistency, and uniformity.


The process of data cleansing may involve the removal of typographical errors, data validation, and data enhancement. It generally helps to improve data quality, and the process can be automated or done manually. Also known as data cleansing, it entails identifying incorrect, irrelevant, incomplete, and the “dirty” parts of a dataset and then replacing or cleaning the dirty parts of the data.Īlthough sometimes thought of as boring, data cleansing is very valuable in improving the efficiency of the result of data analysis. What is Data Cleaning?ĭata cleaning is the process of modifying data to ensure that it is free of irrelevances and incorrect information. This article will cover what data cleaning entails, including the steps involved and how it is used in carrying out research. There are so many processes involved in data cleaning, which makes it ready for analysis once they are completed. It can be carried out manually using data wrangling tools or can be automated by running the data through a computer program. It is a very important step in ensuring that the dataset is free of inaccurate or corrupt information. Data cleaning is one of the important processes involved in data analysis, with it being the first step after data collection.
