What I found interesting about “Reading a Data Dictionary” was the importance of making sure to understand what the dictionary is showing. In general, this may not seem as important to the common ear, but as a young journalist, I want not only my readers to understand what I am trying to portray, but I need to understand as well. This is crucial because if the tables, columns, and rows look unclear to me, then they will surely look even more unclear to the everyday reader, and no journalist wants to write something people cannot understand.

What I found interesting in “How to Avoid 10 Common Mistakes in Data Reporting” were definitely mistakes 6 and 10. Mistake No. 6 talks about the importance of saving  work as a new copy every time an important change is made. This is was interesting to me, personally, because I do not do this often. So, being in this class will hopefully put me in the habit of saving important copies of my work not only in this course, but others as well.

Also, Mistake No. 10 really stuck out to me because it talks about knowing when to ask for help. This is very important because we are humans, and human make mistakes. Sometimes it is better to ask for help when you just aren’t sure. This simple thing can prevent all kinds of bigger mistakes such as false data, or false reporting, etc. There are all kinds of resources that offer tutorials and step-by-step instructions, and it is vital to make use of them.