This week we got our final data analysis toolbox’s revised and checked again by our teacher. We submitted our final version via email, and she is going to check it. I am waiting for her to correct the final version so I can start collecting the data.

As of now I am pretty much ready to go with my data collection, but am waiting for the green light to go. I started thinking of ways to distribute the data. I am going to distribute the surveys at my dad’s practice to his patients. I know that my dad’s patients will offer me with a diverse group of individuals. This will ensure that my sample portrays New Orleans’ individuals the best.

One of the biggest goals of my project is to grab the attention of the media. Our teacher has told us that she is going to get a panel of judges and media to come view our projects once we have finished collecting and analyzing the data.

To appeal to the media I must first ask myself: What are the media looking for? Usually people involved with media are only interested in, well… interesting stories. They want something that they can wow people with or that they can quickly grab the attention of people with. The material they use must also be relevant to what is going on in today’s world and be tied to the lives of people in some way. No one is going to be interested in something that does not directly relate to them or affect them.

The topic of my project, the opinion of New Orleans’ citizens on the bailout plan, is something that many people are interested in. It is very much relevant to today’s world and is something that affects all Americans. The way I can make this appealing topic even more appealing is by presenting the data in an interesting way. In a way the graphs and data analysis methods used to describe the data can make the data more appealing. For example, a confidence interval of my sample could help me predict how the population of New Orleans felt as a whole about this stimulus package. A lot of people don’t know about certain statistical analysis methods and graphs, so the graphs and analysis should be presented in a way where the people can easily understand it. Ultimately a strong choice of words would both appeal to and inform the individuals very well. For my project I hope to attract the attention of the Times Picayune newspaper. I feel that if they publish my info in their newspaper then it will catch the eyes of thousands of people.

Here are two websites that show and describe some statistical methods I will use:

http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c010527c.asp

http://www.netmba.com/statistics/plot/box/

As of now I am past the planning stages of my project. I just completed my data analysis toolbox corrections. Now it is time to start to distribute the survey and then collect the data. I have just completed my data analysis toolbox editing, and I am planning on waiting for the corrections to start the distribution process. I want to make sure my methods and survey are right before going ahead with the distribution process. I plan to try and get as many responses to this survey as possible. Having a large sample would mean better results to use for predictions about the population. Most of my sample will come from individuals I know, although I plan to try and pick individuals from different areas of New Orleans.

A few weeks ago we turned in our data analysis toolbox. This toolbox is used to outline our project and describe all of the methods and tools we will use to complete it. When our teacher handed the corrected versions back to us she told me that mine was the best in the class. She did not mean that it was perfect, but she meant that I had done the best job. My toolbox had no corrections made by her in ink, but she simply stated that the data analysis toolbox should be more detailed. Also, she wanted me to include the survey I plan to use in my survey. She told us that once we finished the toolbox it should be so detailed that we could simply read off of it and simply perform the actions it talks about.

When changing my toolbox I went along the guidelines that everything had to be more specific. One of the first things I changed was the analysis section. I wanted to describe each of my numerical summaries, graphs, and data analysis methods in depth. On the original toolbox I simply stated which of each I planned to use. When I edited the survey I talked what each different test would do. Doing this will ensure that if someone who does not know about statistics reads this then they will at least have some sort of understanding about what the terminology means. Also, I got to proofread through my toolbox and found that some of the graphs I used were the wrong ones. For example, instead of putting box plot I put dot plot, which would have been a major error if not corrected. Overall the toolbox editing went well, and I hope that my toolbox is up to the standards of my teacher.

(If you are confused about what a confidence interval is visit this website. I found it very informative. http://www.stats.gla.ac.uk/steps/glossary/confidence_intervals.html )

Millions of people have blogging sites that all deal with different things. The purpose of a blog is to inform viewers with commentary about different issues, events, and things. Blog entries are personal to every different blogger. Our teacher is going to be assigning us a rubric that will lay out rules and guidelines to follow when writing our blogs. So you may be wondering, what makes a good blog entry?

Every blog has a certain topic. The most important thing about the blog is that the blog entries on a blog must be relevant to the blog topic. If someone’s blog is about the NBA, than they shouldn’t be talking about politics or anything else in their entries. For example, if you look at the LSU Tigers sports NOLA blog, http://blog.nola.com/lsusports/, you can see that every blog entry is about LSU and nothing else. Also, blog entries must be very detailed, so the reader can clearly visualize and understand what the writer is talking about. Often bloggers write things in a way that is easy for them to understand, but sometimes they do not think of the reader. Just because a blogger can understand what he or she is writing does not mean that the reader will.

Another important aspect of blogging is to present your information in a visually pleasing way. No one is going to want to read something that is difficult to read or understand. The text in the blog should be a reasonable size and have a reasonable font. Also, the colors of the font and background should not conflict with one another. A balance of text, imagery, and other things should be used. You don’t want to have too many words, and you don’t want to have too many images. In summation, this is what I feel are the important factors of a good blog entry.