Reading a data dictionary

By Daniel Trielli

Philip Merrill College of Journalism

University of Maryland

Understand what the data dictionary is showing

1. Why different tables?
   
2. They show us the columns, but what are the rows?

Understand what the fields mean

1. Are the descriptions clear? Do we need to look something up or ask someone what they mean?
   
2. Are there any fields that look promising?
   

See how the values are formatted

1. Some are text, some are numbers. Which is more reliable?
   
2. Some are code. Do we know what the codes mean?
   

Make a list of what do we want to find out

1. What questions do we want to ask?
   
2. What is the best possible outcome?