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Data is a collection of facts, such as values or measurements. It can be numbers, words, measurements,
observations, or descriptions of things – any kind of information. We usually encounter data that is
expressed as a set of numbers. It’s collected in many ways, then organized so that people can make
observations about the outcomes.

We usually don’t need to know how the data we’re working with was collected – if that’s important
information, it will be provided. However, how data is displayed and interpreted is very important! Once
data is collected, it can be displayed in a number of ways. One useful format is a table, another is in a
graph, such as a circle, bar, or line graph. You’ve probably seen examples of all of these; they show up in
newspapers and in news casts on television.

There are times when it’s very useful to be able to find one value that describes a whole set of data and
there are a number of ways to determine that single value. Two common ones are: the mean and the
mode. They are values that define the “center” of a set of data or what is typical of the whole set of data.
Knowing how to calculate a single value that describes a whole set of data is important!

Let's put these explanations to work in the following handout:

A Graph is Worth a 1000 Words.pdf