Title: Averaging Using Excel: Data entry
Course: BTEC-2000-301-302-303-F21 > Section: InnovaBio® Project Presentation

The first thing you will need to do with your data set is to enter it into Excel. The Excel worksheet is organized into rows and columns. Rows are numbered and columns are alphabetical. If the data was recorded digitally, you can usually copy and paste into Excel. This image shows you a good format for listing data.

When you open Excel you should see a page with a green bar at the top. Cells are identified with alphabetical columns and numerical rows.  Enter the data vertically in a column because they are more compact than rows. I have chosen column B for the data because I want to add a data identifier in column A.  The title in column B is the name of the data set (Roma Tomato Mass) with the unit of measure in parentheses (g). In column A, I have identified each data point with a sample number. For a large data set, having an identifier is useful for determining the value of “n”.

Excel has a shortcut for adding sequential numbers to a column or row.  The figure below shows how to start generating a number sequence.

To label your data with sequential numbers. Put a “1” in the top cell and “2” in the next cell down. Select the two cells, then hover over the lower right corner (red box). You will see a solid black plus (+) sign. Drag the + down the sheet over the next several cells until you reach the bottom of your data set.  You should see sequential numbers in increments of one next to your data values.