Tag Archives: advanced filters

Finding Stories in Spreadsheets – ebook now live!

Finding stories in spreadsheets book cover

Cover design by Matt Buck/Drawnalism

My latest ebook – Finding Stories in Spreadsheets – is now live on Leanpub.

As with Scraping for Journalists, I’m publishing the book week-by-week so the book can be updated based on reader feedback, user suggestions and topical developments.

Each week you can download a new chapter covering a different technique for finding stories, from calculating proportions and changes, to combining data, cleaning it up, testing it, and extracting specific details.

There’s also a downloadable spreadsheet at the end of each chapter with a series of exercises to practise that chapter’s technique and find particular stories.

Along the way I tackle some other considerations in telling the story, such as context and background, and the importance of being specific in the language that you use.

If there’s anything you’d like covered in the book let me know. You can also buy the book in a ‘bundle’ with its sister title Data Journalism Heist, which covers quick-turnaround techniques for finding stories in spreadsheets using pivot tables and advanced filters.

New ebook now ready! Learn basic spreadsheet skills with Data Journalism Heist

Data journalism book Data Journalism Heist

I’ve written a short ebook for people who are looking to get started with data journalism but need some help.

Data Journalism Heist covers two simple techniques for finding story leads in spreadsheets: pivot tables and advanced filters.

Neither technique requires any formulae, and there are dozens of local datasets (and one international one) to use them on.

In addition the book covers how to follow leads from data, and tell the resulting story, with tips on visualisation and plenty of recommendations for next steps.

You can buy it from Leanpub here. Comments welcome as always.