Step 4: Clean Your Data

Alright, now you're getting to the exciting parts! You've hopefully learned a lot up until this point and you've invested a chunk of your time to learning Python and how to work with these vital tools. Now you're going to start working with your data. This is where your hard work starts really paying off. At this point, you should have completed the following sections:

Step 1: Download Tools ✅
Step 2: Learn Python Basics ✅
Step 3: Python in Jupyter Notebooks ✅

Now you are going to learn techniques to do the seven most important things that you'll need to do while working with data:

Import packages into your notebook.
Import your raw data into your notebook.
Understand what the data are and how the data are stored.
Change data that are not stored in the way that best fits your needs.
Delete data that you do not want.
Create data that we need.
Export the cleaned data to a file.

As in step 3, you'll work through workbooks that are Jupyter Notebooks full of instruction and guidance. Please experiment! If you ever wonder "what would happen if I did this?", try it and see what happens! Experimentation, making mistakes, and figuring out what went wrong is a huge part of the learning process.

To get started...

You want to open the workbook in JupyterLab. To open the workbook in JupyterLab:

Open Anaconda.
Open JupyterLab.
Use the file navigator on the left to find the step4_workbook.ipynb in the step4_clean_your_data folder.
When you open the workbook file, you may see a pop-up that says "Select Kernel". A kernel is your coding environment. You should select python_for_uxr_env. This is the coding environment that you set up in Step 1.

When you're done...

You've beat me to step5_describe_your_data. I still need to create the workbook for this. Please send me an email @ alexdsbreslav@gmail.com and tell me to hurry up!